


Finitum

by plinys



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Anxiety, Canon-Typical Violence, Force Bond (Star Wars), Friends to Enemies to Lovers, M/M, different first meeting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-13
Updated: 2016-03-07
Packaged: 2018-05-20 00:49:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 35,966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5986692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plinys/pseuds/plinys
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lieutenant Hux gets a mission to pick up an asset for the Supreme Leader from the ruins of a massacred temple, and the entire course of his life is changed in one moment by the appearance of a bloodstained boy who calls himself Ben. A series of meetings and chance encounters throughout the years draw the two of them together again and again, as their relationship shifts from almost friends to enemies to something else entirely.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. principium

**Author's Note:**

> I have been meaning to write something Kylux for a while, and of course, the first time I actually sit down to write something I end up plotting out a 8 chapter fic. Updates are currently scheduled to come once a week, though if I complete the fic sooner than expected, updates may come out twice a week. Tags will be added to the summary as the fic progresses, however, I have chosen to pre-rate the fic at E because the hot things are coming. 
> 
> The original working title for this fic was "finitum non capax infiniti," but the tumblr focus groups told me a long latin title would turn people off... Though this concept is still important to the fic's theme, so I wanted to offer the translation here. "Finitum non capax infiniti" means “the finite cannot grasp the infinite.”
> 
> Lastly, a huge thanks to [Selene](http://mallcolmducasse.tumblr.com/) for being a wonderful beta and giving me the encouragement to actually post this fic.

A set of coordinates cross the display on his control panel, just as his ship changes course without him moving to enter the command.

This is not altogether unusual, the transport he is currently operating belongs to the academy and as such can have its course overridden even from a distance by anyone with the proper command codes. Much of his latest trek had been dictated in such a fashion. Coordinates would be entered from afar, he would arrive on the scene and pick up the _assets_ , and return to the ship for it to take him to the next destination.

The issue that arose here did not come from the loss of control of his ship, but rather the disruption from schedule.

Mere hours before he had reported to the academy that his vessel was full, and a course to return had been imputed.

He makes a half-hearted attempt to override the controls, predictably with no success, before jamming on the comm unit with just a bit more force than was absolutely necessary.

It takes a minute for the connection to go through, but when it does the blue holographic figure of Commandant Brendol Hux Sr. appears on the screen before him.

For once he forgoes the proper protocols of greeting a superior officer, as he speaks rapidly, unable to hide the displeasure from his tone. “I cannot acquire any more assets, all of the stocked incubators are full, unless you’d like me to dispose of one of our current acquisitions, there simply isn’t enough room to-”

“Lieutenant.”

The sharp formal tone of a commanding officer leads their discussion. Something he should have expected. There has never been much familial love in the Hux family, too busy with duty and legacy to think about using a soft one or a kind glance.

He eventually acquiesces with a simple, “Sir.”

“This is an order direct from the Supreme Leader,” there’s a sort of anxious energy around his father as he says those words.

An anxious energy that the junior Hux can understand. It is not often the Supreme Leader passes down orders directly, rumor had it only the highest level of command had even ever seen the man. For him to have given an order for a Lieutenant fresh from the academy was unheard of.

“For what purpose?”

It was not like him to question the orders of the Supreme Leader. No one questioned the orders of the Supreme Leader.

His father’s disapproval at the tone carried clear through the comm channel. “Acquisition.”

Hux’s typical area of expertise. Ever since he had finished the academy he had been sent on missions like these, running halfway around the galaxy to retrieve whatever it was the higher command felt necessary. Some days he felt more like a smuggler than an officer of the First Order.

Though instead of transporting spice, his acquisitions were far more useful.

“He requested me specifically,” Hux asks, doing his best to keep his voice steady and level.

“Do not flatter yourself. You’re simply the officer with the closest proximity to the transmitted coordinates.”

The words offer him a small hint of relief, “And after I acquire the Supreme Leader’s package?”

“Another set of coordinates will be transmitted to you.”

That was unhelpfully vague. As expected.

“Son,” this one word, no less sharp than the others, has Hux snapping to attention at once. “You do this properly, and you give yourself a chance to making a positive impression on the Supreme Leader. We could use more funding, completing this assignment is our best chance at that. You understand this, don’t you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Do not disappoint me more than you already have.”

With those words the comm channel dies down. The blue light flickering out to leave him alone on his ship once more.

According to the display panel, he’s an hour out from his new destination, a thought that allows Hux almost no modicum of comfort, as he still has no idea what awaits him when he reaches the coordinates, no clue what he will even be looking for when he arrives. His already ragged fingernails dig into the palms of his hands, in a meager attempt to rid his body of some of his tension. His eyes unmoving from the display counting down the minutes.

\---

The stench of death hangs in the air lingering around him.

Hux is not unfamiliar with death, he has seen much in his time since the academy, so much so that he has almost become numb to it. Able to look past the bodies littering the ground and insist that it is for the betterment of the First Order. Capable of holding a blaster steady in his hand, as he shoots down all that stands in his way.

This is different.

The death that lingers here presses against him with an almost invisible presence, as if warning him to turn back, to return to his ship before it is too late.

Though too late for _what_ exactly he cannot be certain.

He does not believe in ghosts, does not believe in the mystical Force that so many others seem willing to rely on. But as he gingerly he steps over the body of a young Arcona girl, her lifeless yellow eyes stare open up at him, such that he cannot suppress the chill that rolls down his spine.

Not for the first time he wonders why the Supreme Leader sent him on this assignment, was it truly simply the proximity of his vessel to the system, or had he been chosen for a reason. A lamb picked fresh to be offered in sacrifice to whatever creature tore this temple apart.

He did not believe in coincidences, did not believe in much of anything. But other people talked, spoke of powers that one such as Hux could never understand, mythical energy that moves through each person, that can be bent to the will of the Supreme Leader granting him omnipotence.

Hux had always written it off as myths and nonsense, though if the Supreme Leader truly has some form of foresight or telepathy, then suddenly a coincidence could become something so much worse. If the Supreme Leader has disagreed with the senior Hux’s plans for the new trooper program, what better way to punish disobedience than to have the Commandants only heir killed, after all.

Any second now whatever killed these monk-like children could appear to lay him to rest among their shattered bodies.

Wandering through his massacre is getting him nowhere.

Hesitantly he speaks up, “I’ve come at the wishes of the Supreme Leader to take you to him,” hoping, as foolish as it seems, that he will get a response in a similar fashion.

It’s unlikely that whatever he is to acquire is even a person, because while that would be more like Hux’s usual, the odds of someone still being alive in this place seems impossible. No - he’s more likely here to pick up a weapon of some sort, or a religious artifact.

His hopes are answered, as a voice echoes through the bloodied temple. “Who are you?” The temple is built in a way that the sound could be coming from anywhere, and sounds from the echoes as though to be coming from everywhere.

“Lieutenant Hux,” he says, feeling no reason to lie. “Of the First Order.”

He waits after speaking, listening when after a moment there comes not a spoken answer, but the sound of footfalls echoing through the chamber, heading in what Hux can approximate as his direction.

Self consciously he straightens his uniform, desperate to impress whoever is coming towards him, whoever the Supreme Leader felt was so important that Hux had to put his previous assignment on hold.

When finally a figure appears at the end of the hallway, it is not a monster like Hux had expected or even a great warrior.

No, the figure that stands before him is nothing more than a boy, a teenager at the most, a few years younger than Hux. Though the roundness of his features makes Hux more inclined to see him as a boy rather than a man. One with robes that may have once been tan but were now the deep maroon color of dried blood. Dried blood that caked his exposed hands, and splashed across his features. His dark eyes looked terrified, whole body shaking as he stepped forwards towards Hux.

Suddenly it all made sense, he hadn’t come to retrieve the weapon, but rather to aid the last survivor.

“Are there other survivors,” Hux asks, putting aside the haunted look on the bloodied boy’s face and instead focusing on the mission at hand, “Is there anyone else?”

The boy before him remains mute, but slowly shakes his head once and then twice.

\---

The Nebular is able to be flown by just the one, meant for retrieval of assets not a war ship. His assets are stacked in the freight deck of the ship, in stasis incubators, ready to be brought back to the academy, if he ever makes it back there.

His ship is not made for comfort. There’s a small living area, just enough for a sole occupant to use for brief periods of time, a refresher that has only a sonic shower, and a small bunk tucked off to the side of the living area.

Hux shows the boy to that bunk, setting him down on the edge as to keep his bloodstained robes as far from Hux’s only set of sheets as possible. Though he knows it will be a useless effort, the stale irony scent already clinging to the air around them.

“Stay here,” Hux orders, before leaving the living space to go to the pilot’s seat.

It is there that he lets out a strangled breath, hands shaving ever so slightly as he takes his ship into orbit. The last thing he needs is to have an anxiety attack, not where these is someone clearly in shock sitting on his bunk, not when they’re on a direct path to the Supreme Leader.

He counts to seven before letting out another breath, doing so in a repetitious fashion until the rapid beating of his head has settled into something more manageable.

When he finally steadies himself, he looks to their flight plan, the coordinates transmitted from the Supreme Leader have already been entered into his ship. The destination is somewhere outside the Outer Rim, an area of space that Hux has never been in before. It will take a little over twenty-four hours to reach their destination, a stretch of time that seems far too long for two people to be sharing a transport built for only one.

His mind goes briefly back to his new companion, reminding himself that he has a job to do. With one last check of the autopilot he slips out of the control room, moving back into the living area of The Nebular.

“I need to get you cleaned up,” Hux says.

The boy does not respond, but he is uncertain why he had expected anything different. If he is not going to talk then maybe he could at least follow orders.

“You can start by stripping out of your robes.”

As Hux says this he moves to grab a pair of his own sleep pants. The boy before him is lanky enough that they should not be _too_ long on him, though he may need to tie the waist tighter. Hux looks up with the intention to say as such, only for the words to die on his lips as he watches the boy strip. Each bloodied layer is pulled off with practiced precision, each piece folded and placed as a pile on top of each other. The similarities into the manner at which he was taught to treat his own uniform, makes it clear that the outfit the boy is wearing is meant to identify him in a particular fashion. He wears it like a suit of armor, and removes it as though doing so is letting go of one last shred of who he used to be.

When the last layers are removed, he sets a silver cylinder atop the pile of clothes. Hux has never seen one before, but he has heard stories about them, myths and legends. He knows instinctively that the weapon before his eyes is a lightsaber. The weapon of a Jedi.

Once he finishes the boy looks up, his dark eyes meeting Hux’s for one long moment, before he reaches out expectantly, only to stop as he stares down at his bloodied fingers.

“Here let me,” Hux offers.

Generally Hux prefered sonic showers, they were more convenient and less wasteful, but in this case a surge of water would have been useful for washing his charge clean. Instead he’s forced to take one of his own undershirts as a sacrifice to the cause, wetting it with water from the ship's small conservator.

It is with this that he washes the blood from the boy’s hands, rubbing the wet cloth over his knuckles until the pale skin underneath shines back at him. It is then that Hux moves to his face, bringing the cloth over his cheekbones, chasing the spattering of blood into his hairline. Sweeping it gently over eyelids, when finally those dark searching eyes slide shut such that Hux can finish his cleaning.

Hux knows better than to ask questions.

Even if the boy would answer, he was certain he would not like knowing the answer. If there was one thing the First Order had taught him was not to ask questions, those who were curious or who thought too far out of the lines were the ones that had a habit of suddenly disappearing.

Yet he cannot help himself, “You were lucky to have survived.”

It is then that he finally gets a reaction from the boy, the blank features shifting into something else entirely, something darker, as he barks out a harsh unpleasant noise that seems to be a facsimile of a laugh.

Before he says one word, “No.”

“What happened back there at your temple?”

The boy blinks at him slowly, seeming as if he is about to retreat back into himself. Hux knows that there’s nothing more that he will get out of the boy for at least sometime, perhaps this is the universe's way of saving him. If knowing what happened was able to put the haunted look in that boy’s eyes, Hux didn’t want to know.

\---

Their journey seemed likely to pass with nothing but radio silence from the boy.

The silence of the ship which normally offered Hux comfort, now seemed oppressive, too much like the silence of the ruined temple. His own living space seems tainted by the silent boy’s presence, such that he cannot sitting at his desk and do work on his datapad without an uncomfortable chill settling over him.

Which was why he had quickly resigned himself to remaining in the cockpit for the vast majority of their journey.

At least here he didn’t have to endure empty stares.

The boy’s voice suddenly far too close for comfort causes Hux to jolt from his position slumped against the Nebular’s controls. “I’m hungry.”

Apparently he has recovered from the shock enough to be impolite, or maybe that is just the boy’s nature.

Hux doesn’t turn to look at him, but he can see the reflection of the boy’s features in the viewport in front of him. “There’s ration bars in the conservator.”

This earns him no reaction.

“Do you not know what a conservator is?”

Again nothing.

Hux lets out an angry sigh before getting out of the pilot’s seat. This was why he liked to have his assets in stasis, they never came at him with entitled attitudes. Hux pushes past the boy, deliberately bumping their shoulders together, to get some sort of reaction out of him. It works, and for his troubles, Hux is rewarded with a displeased gasp.

The conservator isn’t stocked with much variety, just the water reclamation unit, and a number of ration bars. He grabs one of the bars and tosses it in the direction of the kid, at least he’s able to catch the bar. Though Hux does note that his fingers shake slightly as he undoes the wrapping on the bar, before taking a bite out of it.

He can see the second the kid registers the taste, his lip wrinkling as if the ration has personally offended him, before he struggles a bit to swallow it down. The ration bars weren’t particularly flavorful, in fact they were quite bland, meant to pack the right amount of nutrients rather than offer anything pleasant to the tastebuds. Hux, who had grown up at the academy, was long since used to the flavor of the ration bars.

Though whenever he was forced to eat the local cuisine of the planets he had stopped on, his expression would’ve been a mirror of the boy before him. To Hux anything that wasn’t a First Order rationed meal always felt too sweet or too bitter, to the point of turning his stomach.

“Do you have anything better?”

“No,” Hux says, grabbing one of the bars for himself and settling down at the only chair in the living area, the one at the desk. The boy mirrors his actions, settling on the bunk, though still squinting at the ration bar with a look of distrust, “It’s this or starve.”

“I’d rather starve.”

Hux snorts. “After all that effort the Supreme Leader expanded sending me to come get you?” He’s trying to keep his voice casual, but under the intense stare of the boy it is hard. That, and just mentioning the name of the Supreme Leader reminds him that he has no clue how this journey will end. Will the Supreme Leader decide he has seen too much and extinguish his life force on arrival? Or will he -

“Stop it,” the boy’s voice, deeply unhappy, cuts Hux’s thoughts off at once.

His eyes snapping up to look warily at him, still met by that cold dark stare. “Excuse me?”

It is the boy that breaks their staring contest, “Your head, it’s so loud - all that energy, you need to calm down. Your worrying is annoying - distracting, stop it.”

It takes Hux a moment to figure out what the boy is saying, but when it does, he flashes hot with anger.

His _anxiety_ is annoying.

As if Hux isn’t already all too aware of his own weakness, now this child is going as far as to insist that Hux’s anxiety is inconveniencing him. He wants to hit something - to hit _someone_ \- but he can only imagine what the Supreme Leader would think if his acquisition turned up damaged.

“Can’t you kriffing listen,” the boy snaps, before pushing off the bed, and crossing so that he can stand in front of Hux. His hands come up cradle Hux’s face, fingertips pressing against his temples.

“What are you-” Is all Hux can get out before something happens. The anxiety inside of him, the constant pressure of it in the back of his mind, seems to fall silent at once. All emotions slip away from him, leaving him feeling not just empty, but at peace. Finally able to breathe without his body shaking.

The situation is so startling that for a second he allows himself to relax into the comfort of it.

Though that second does not last long enough.

He jerks sharply out from the boy’s grasp, not missing the startled look in his eyes. Hux had heard talk of species, humanoids that had abilities that were telepathic in quality. He had also heard rumors of the Force, a mythical power that was rumored to be able to have been wielded by the Jedi and others like them. The image of the boy setting a lightsaber atop his bloodied clothing is all too sharp in Hux’s mind.

“What did you do,” he says not bothering to keep the accusation out of his tone.

“I made it stop,” is the only explanation he is offered, “You need to learn to meditate, then your mind wouldn’t be so loud and-”

“What the kriff did you do to me?”

His anxiety may be gone for the moment, but anger rises up so quickly to take its place. Anger at this boy that the Supreme Leader seemed to care so much about, anger at these mythical powers which he had just felt first hand.

The boy does not react to his angry tone in the way that Hux had been hoping for. Instead he simply gives Hux a look as though he is the most dense being in the galaxy. Before saying, “I used the Force,” with a tone to indicate that this should’ve been obvious.

It takes everything Hux has in him to hiss out, “The Force isn’t real,” before standing up abruptly and returning to the cockpit. This time he makes sure to lock the door behind him, so that he cannot be disturbed by the boy.

Though if what he was saying about the Force was true, then the door might not even be enough to keep him out.

\---

At some point he falls asleep, slumped forward on his arms over the ship's control panel. The position is uncomfortable, and when a dial digging into his cheek wakes him up, Hux decides to damn all of his ill will and return to the living area of the ship if only to get some much needed rest.

He’s too tired to fully think through what he will do if the boy is still in his bunk, his plan to simply push the boy off with an insistence that he’s rested enough.

Though when he enters the living area, Hux is pleasantly surprised to find that the boy is not on his bunk, but rather situated on the ground just outside the ‘fresher. He’s kneeling on the ground, head bowed forward, eyes shut, as though he has gone into some sort of trance. _Meditation_ , his mind supplies the word sharply as though spoken in the voice of the boy before him, but it’s probably just the memory of his sharp suggestion that Hux learn to do so, that brings that voice up in his mind.

Whatever it is, Hux shakes off the feeling, stepping around the boy and towards the bunk. If he’s lucky he’ll be able to get a few hours of sleep, enough to make the time between now and when they arrive at the coordinates provided by the Supreme Leader pass quicker.

Gingerly he moves the pile of bloodied clothing and the arcane weapon on top of it, over to the floor by his desk, before settling into the bed.

As soon as his head hits the thin mattress, sleep finds him.

 

_It’s a scream sharp and shrill, a young girl with wide brown eyes staring up at him, scampering backwards -_

_Her features are familiar to him, such that sometimes it feels like looking in a mirror. Though they always tend to look better on her, whereas on his own face they seem -_

_Her palms are bleeding, hit sharp on the stones floor of the temple. She has a habit of doing this, scuffing her palms, but this time there will be no one to bandage the wounds. They press against the side of her brown robes, staining her obi with red crescents -_

_There’s a weapon in his hands, heavy and sure, he’s done this before - brought the blade down again and again, this time will be no different. Easier almost, each of one that goes down fuels his power, he can feel it moving from his fingertips up through his body. The power he was fated to behold -_

_He raises the purple blade to bring down a the finishing blow -_

_Some one calls his name -_ only it's not his, not really _\- and he spins away from the girl saber cutting through the air with no target -_

_The man in front of him is older, but no less horrified by what he is watching, blue eyes widen with distress before they soften offering comfort, “This isn’t you, this isn’t” -_

 

He wakes with a gasp. Heart beating too fast as if it might burst from his chest, as he tries to make sense of what is reality and what was the dream he had escaped from.

As his eyes slowly adjust to the dark, he is suddenly reminded that he is not alone here. The _boy_ is with him, leaning over Hux’s figure with an expression akin to concern on his features, his eyebrows knitted together, pulling at the constellation of freckles on his face.

If Hux could jerk back from him he would, but doing so would only mean bumping into the wall beside the bunk, so instead he sucks in a sharp breath and wills himself not to give into the anxiety already beginning to build up inside of him.

It is the boy that breaks the silence between them, “You were having a bad dream.”

“Oh you don’t say,” Hux says dryly, sarcasm can be a form of armor.

Though from the boy’s snort, he sees through Hux’s defenses easily enough. “Move over.”

“This is my bed,” Hux says, refusing to budge, “You can sleep on the floor.”

“It’ll help,” he insists.

Hux highly doubts that. Nightmares are not an uncommon occurrence for him, but this one had felt like it was something more. Too life like, too real, he feels certain that if he closed his eyes it would return with that same shocking clarity to right where it had left off. Never before had Hux been able to remember his dreams upon waking, but this one seemed impossible to escape.

And yet, the boy seems to believe he could help Hux escape it.

“Fine,” he says, after a moment, moving closer to the wall so that the boy can slip under the sheets as well.

This bunk really isn’t made for more than one person, they shoulders bump together in what should be an uncomfortable arrangement, however he finds no discomfort having the boy next to him. Instead a wave of comfort washes over him, the steady grip that Hux had had on his nightmare mere moments before already seems to have begun to fade away.

“You’re doing that,” he says, even though voicing the thought outloud feels foolish.

“Yes.”

He wants to tell him to stop it, whatever it is, to stop the _Force_ from washing over him, but Hux cannot find the words.

Instead he says, something else, unable to filter his thoughts. “What’s your name?”

When he gets no response right away, he chides himself internally, he should’ve known better than to have asked. If the boy wasn’t willing to give the answer away than that was probably for the best, everything he learned at this point was already edging toward too much, to the point where the Supreme Leader might think it best to simply silence him, to -

“Ben.” The boy answers, soothing his worries with that one word. “My name is Ben.”

For some reason the name sounds almost familiar, but he’s asleep before he can figure out why.

\---

The first thing he notices upon waking is that he’s alone. Something that would normally offer him comfort, now shoots off alarm bells in Hux’s head, forcing him into wakefulness far quicker than he would like. A quick search of the living area shows that his charge - that _Ben_ \- is nowhere to be found.

Anxiety begins to surge through Hux, irrationally thinking that the boy could’ve somehow found a way off of his ship. Sure, there were no escape pods or any means of leaving while they were in hyperspace, but the _Force_ worked in mysterious ways. Ways such that many of Hux’s contemporaries had worshiped it as some divine instrument, a divine instrument that Ben had already proved himself capable of manipulating.

Hux moves to the cockpit at once, the only other place he could imagine Ben being, though isn’t too surprised when he finds it empty.

A quick glance at the autopilot controls shows that he has five hours until they reach the Supreme Leader, which meant five hours to locate Ben and make him somewhat presentable.

Hux checks the ‘fresher on his way out of the cockpit unsurprised to find it lacking his charge.

There is only one place yet to check.

He moves through the ship with just a hint of quickness, his feet sure on the path to the part of the ship meant to store the assets. As the door to the room slides open, Ben turns to look at him, illuminated by the yellow light of the incubators, his features are not surprised in the slightest.

“You’re not to be in here,” Hux says sharply. “If I find you’ve tampered with any of the assets.”

“The _assets_ ,” Ben repeats, almost scandalized by Hux’s words, “You mean the children.”

Hux scans the incubators behind him, doing a quick count of his stock. When they all prove to be there, he turns back to Ben, ignoring the displeased look on the boy’s face. He will have to get over whatever sense of entitlement and righteousness is making him so offended. The First Order has no place for teenagers with soft hearts.

“I didn’t realize the First Order employed smugglers.”

“I’m not a smuggler,” Hux says sharply, “I move assets around for the First Order, I-”

“A glorified smuggler than,” Ben corrects, distain dripping from his tone. “Or would you prefer being called a trafficker, a slaver - that is what you have here, isn’t it?”

“Don’t presume to understand the workings of the First Order. You’re clearly a new addition to the order,that matters that I am dealing with are far above your understanding.”

This comment seems to amuse Ben. His eyes dancing with silent humor.

“I know more about smugglers than you would expect.”

“I’m not-”

“What are the children for? They’re too young to make proper slaves, though I suppose to the right buyer, if the First Order is so desperate for funds.”

Ben’s fingers trail along one of the incubator chambers, the yellow glow from it casting eerie shadows on his face, his dark eyes reflecting the color like pools back at Hux.

He owes Ben no explanation. The boy before him is simply another job, another person to be transferred. Yet, he feels as if he _must_ give one. That he must defend the program which is to be his legacy.

“They’re to be soldiers, a new breed, raised from birth, programmed to be loyal to the First Order,” Hux explains, with a small hint of pride. “I am the First Lieutenant on the program in charge of asset acquisition, set to take over control of the program within a few years,” if his father ever let himself retire with grace so that the junior Hux might take over his birthright. “We use a series of medical procedures to build them stronger than ever before, combined with intense mental condition, the first rounds have been more than successful, these infants will be among phase three.”

Ben remains silent for a long following Hux’s explanation, finally pulling his hand away from the glass of the incubator.

The anticipation between finishing speaking and waiting to hear what Ben thinks of the matter feels as though it may just kill him. Instinctively he jams his middle and ring fingers into the palm of his hand to ground himself.

“Why not just use clones?”

He releases his tense fingers at Ben’s words.

“Clones are inefficient, why have an army made up of the same deficient man replicated over and over again, each shortcoming only increasing with time? Our troopers will differ slightly, just enough that the true leaders will rise forward, the outliers eliminated, allowing specialization, without uniform weakness,” Hux says, “A clone is inherently flawed because all beings are, but in that case if one were to discover the weakness of one clone, it could be used to ruin an entire army. By using these new troopers there is no chance of a complete system failure.”

Ben weighs his words for a moment, “If you found the perfect specimen clones would be more efficient.”

“You speak of a hypothetical that could never exist.”

“Would you not clone yourself if given the chance, an army of men just as yourself, who think in the same way and can safeguard your ambitions?”

He means to consider it for a second, but the instant the thought crosses his mind all he can think is his father’s heavy tone reminding him not to _disappoint_ him again. The words carry like a warning through his mind, echoing into the infinity of space.

When he speaks it is with words that seem practice, though he is certain that he has never said them before, “The clone would only disappoint me.”

\---

The five hours between them and their destination pass all too quickly.

Hux offers his only spare uniform shirt to Ben. The stark white of the shirt accenting his already far too pale skin. He keeps the sleep pants, for at least they have a way of cinching at the waist, whereas his uniform pants would’ve just hung too loose around Ben’s waist.

His robes are a lost cause, too bloodied to be presentable for a meeting with the Supreme Leader or whatever fate awaited the boy. Though he offers Ben his lightsaber, which he takes gingerly from Hux’s hand.

Ben’s fingers thumb at the controls, bringing the blade to life before his eyes.

Somehow he knew even before it was ignited that the blade would shine purple between them.

This is it, the moment he is finally killed for all of his trouble. Hux braces himself, closing his eyes, ready for an impact that never comes.

He only opens his eyes when the electric sound of the blade falls silent, and when he does so he is met by Ben’s searching gaze.

He feels the need to voice his thoughts to say, _I thought you would kill me_ , but he cannot manage the words.

Somehow he feels as though Ben understands, a thought echoes through Hux’s head that Ben nearly had. That it would have been so easy to end Hux right there. To erase the last twenty-four hours of existence.

He shivers without logical reasoning.

The last thing Ben says, before stepping out of the transport, will linger in his mind for weeks to come.

“Don’t worry Lieutenant Hux, we’ll meet again. It is the will of the Force.”

 


	2. deus

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Episode VIII started filming today, which felt like the sort occasion that needed to be celebrated with an update.

“What is it like to be treated like a god?”

“Do I detect a hint of jealousy, Captain?”

Phasma’s voice holds a hint of amusement, her core world accent making each word sound as though she is making a joke at Hux’s expense. He wonders why they never managed to polish the accent out of her, to remove the one connection to the life that she had been stolen away from. Hux could still remember the girl that had stared down at him, when they’d first met, one of the senior Hux’s prized Commandant Cadets.

Though now she had a new Hux to be loyal to. Even if her teasing tones would mean to belay that sense of formal structure between them.

If she’s amused at anything it is at the hubbub around them. Members of the Exactor’s crew moving about with renewed purpose. As they had been ever since Hux briefed his staff on their latest assignment. His fellow officers had been far too eager at the notice, their belief in some invisible construct, some construct that has picked their Order as a vessel towards greatness, seeming to inspire them. The troopers, on the other hand, were crafted to see the apostles as earlier sentients had seen their gods, creatures to be respected and feared.

Both groups newly found inspiration towards their mission left Hux with the urge to constantly roll his eyes in the direction of his crew - only _just_ restraining himself.

A Captain did not broadcast such simply emotions on his visage.

Still, the truth of the matter was that Hux was not looking forward to this assignment. His job was to build up the stormtrooper program, and oversee matters of the academy. The fact that he had been given a ship of his own was more for convenience and as a necessity to grant him a higher rank.

Having to do something out of his usual parameters was inconvenient. Especially since this matter had to do with the Knights of Ren. This had happened a few times before, transporting a knight from one place to another since the band of glorified mercenaries seemed to be unable to ever provide transports of their own, and had resulted in similar reactions from his crew each time before.

“I will simply be glad when this is all over,” Hux tells his Lieutenant.

Watching as Phasma in turn raises her eyebrows at him, “Maybe we’ll get that girl again, what was her name, _Yevan_?”

Hux grimaces at the memory of the Knight that had stayed with them last. A reedy woman with a shrill voice that for some reason Phasma had found fascinating. He had questioned her choices at the time, the Knight was nothing special to look at, and certainly seemed to grate on Hux’s nerves.

Phasma had called the experience _enlightening,_ whatever that meant.

“Well, we will know soon enough.”

\---

He has a practiced speech in his head, words he’s said plenty of times before, meant to offer a welcome and a preordained blessing, words drilled into him endlessly by his father years ago, all to be finished off with a small bow as if to defer to this person who exists outside of the First Order’s command branch.

Those words die on his lips as soon as the Knight steps on board the Exactor. This Knight is not like the others, mysterious figures dressed in all black, because while he is dressed in the garb common to them - black flowing robes, a cloak with a hood covering his head, a cylindrical weapon at his waist - he is not a mystery to Hux.

Hux would know that constellation of freckles marring the face before him in an instant, he had washed the blood off of those very features once before. Those features have haunted too many of Hux’s dreams for him to ever have forgotten them.

It may have been three years since then, but for Hux it suddenly feels as if mere moments before that he had this man on board the Nebular.

The once frightened Jedi child had transformed in those years into a Knight of Ren. His features were blank and impassive, a look that Hux had seen on him before.

The name, “Ben,” falls from his lips without him intending to.

And he does not miss the way that blank face falters for a moment, a horrified look, a rejection of Hux’s words all flicker across his features in an instant before they settle back into a mask of emptiness. Others may have missed it, but Hux, who was watching for that reaction, cannot have.

“I am Kylo, Knight of Ren,” Ben says, the words heavy. It is a tone that is familiar to Hux.

For it is with the very same tone he speaks up in return, “Captain Hux of the First Order.”

“Captain,” Ben - or no, it is _Kylo_ now - repeats. His lips twitch slightly over the title.

“I welcome you to the Exactor, my crew is here to assist you in any way we can. Though I must be honest, we have not yet been briefed on what exactly you will require of us.”

If he is surprised by this, the Knight does not let it show.

“It is to be a matter of asset acquisition. Something you are surely familiar with, Captain, if anything this should be your area of expertise, should it not?”

The barb is clear. Kylo must remember their meeting years before just as well as Hux does.

“I am familiar with the process,” Hux replies, not rising to the bait, “Though if it is as straightforward as that, I do not see why your presence is required.”

Kylo shrugs ever so slightly his robes making waves as he moves. “I requested placement on this assignment. There is a belief that this _asset_ will hold potential for the Knights, a potential that must be cultivated with careful hands. Not just any being can be trusted with the retrieval of a Force sensitive.”

The officers behind him do not bother to hide their glee at this new bit of information. Hux grimaces at this reaction, his features only able to be seen by Kylo, who in turn tilts his head to the side with an almost curious look on his face, forcing their eyes to meet.

His features are more pleasant to look at now, lost is the baby fat of youth which had clung to his cheeks, replaced by the features that could begin to belong to a man. His hair grown out of the unpleasant cut it had been in before, so that it now falls about his face. But it is his eyes, the dark orbs that reflect Hux’s image back at himself that bring him back to the past.

“Why you, and not one of the other Knights,” Hux finds himself asking, when he cannot bring himself to break the eye contact between himself and Kylo. The anxious energy that dwells in the back of his mind, bubbles forth as he finds himself unable to look away. This power Kylo seems to have over him all too unnerving.

“You remember me,” the words are said low enough, private for just Hux’s ears.  

Though they stab just the same as if they were shouted for the whole room to hear.

Hux looks away first, defeated.

\---

By the ships calculations it will take them ten hours to reach their destination, however long it takes Kylo to acquire this asset, and then a ten hour return journey. Less time than their initial meeting, and yet for some reason the time now seems to pass slower.

Perhaps it is a hyper awareness of the fact that the Knight on his ship is not just the usual inconvenience, but one Hux knows from experience.

He paces as far across the ship’s bridge as he can, aware at all times of the eyes of his crew following his movements, normally this would be enough to still his feet, enough to convince Hux to find some other way to release the pent up energy inside of him.

His eyes flick to his chrono again, as though the time might suddenly have passed since the last minute that he had looked at it. When he brings his head back up he stops in his place, freezing at the sight of Kylo entering the bridge. The Knight of Ren seems to briefly survey the scene before him, before his eyes zero in on Hux.

“Captain, I have matters to discuss with you,” Kylo says these words with a put upon tone, as if he is demanding Hux’s presence, but something in the back of his mind insists that this is not the case. In fact to the voices lurking in his head, he feels as though Kylo is offering an escape for him, a way to leave the prying eyes of his crew before his anxiety takes full hold him.

Hux counts to seven in his head before letting out a breath that is meant to sound like a sigh, but comes off more frantic than that to even his own ears. “Let me show you to my office.”

This earns him a shallow bob of Kylo’s head in acquiescence.

The trip to his office doesn’t seem to take nearly long enough, the two of them walking side by side silently as they cross the ship. The tension of it, of all the things unsaid, only seem to make his nerves worse. Hux cannot help but internally curse himself, he had been getting so much better at controlling this, at making himself appear composed in public, and now in an instant the last three years of progress was throw out the window.

And for what?

Because this _man_ was now on his ship?

The notion makes Hux grit his teeth, wishing that the doors to his office were to be manually opened, if only so that he could slam them behind him and release some of his frustrations upon them.  

When the door slips shut, Kylo moves forward, as if responding to come unspoken request, his hands come up towards Hux’s face as they had all those years ago. But this time Hux knows what to expect, jerking his head backwards before the contact can be made.

The word, “Don’t,” hisses out from his lips before he can stop it.

Kylo lowers his hands, looking almost amused at this new development between them.

“I see you never learned to meditate,” Kylo’s voice is careful and sure. “Do you often ignore the advice of those that know better than you?”

“You’re not better than me,” Hux stubbornly insists.

“I know things about you that you’re too afraid to admit to yourself, I can see inside your head so easily, it’s almost remarkable,” Kylo continues, “Others are normally not this easy. I could make you admit them if I wanted to. I’m strong enough now.”

Hux isn’t afraid of him.

No, he’s seen this man when he was nothing more than a boy, being afraid of him now would be foolish. But that doesn’t stop a chill from creeping up his spine, at the cold almost clinical way Kylo speaks about his mind.

Belief in the thing gives it power, those were the words his father had always said. Hux clings to those words now, tearing his gaze away from Kylo so that he does not fall prey to the scare tactics.

Instead he puts more space between them, settling behind his desk in hopes of giving an initiating air, as if he has done this many times before. When the truth of the matter was that Hux spent far less time in his office than many other captains would.

Kylo is predictably unaffected by this motion, though he does settle into the seat on the opposite side of the desk.

He waits and watches as Kylo scans the room, “You’ve upgraded. No longer smuggling children for the good of the Order, then?”

“I wasn’t smuggling-”

“Kidnapping,” Kylo corrects, with a dismissive wave. “This is an improvement, much more hospitable.”

“I wasn’t looking for your approval,” Hux points out, and is subsequently ignored.

“You seem to be.”

“What the kriff does that mean?”

Kylo doesn’t answer the question, instead his eyes are drawn to a space just behind Hux’s head. He tries to think of what’s on the screen behind him, unwilling to turn around and admit that he is so infrequently in his own office that he has forgotten the basic decorating scheme. It’s a holo of something, maybe a picture from his academy days or -

“I didn’t realize you were in the habit of building ships, Captain, that’s all,” Kylo answers his silent question. “This is not the ship we’re currently on board?”

“No,” Hux says as he remembers what the image is of. It was a fantasy of his, one that others might have called him foolish or overly ambitious for having, especially since he had been the Captain of the Exactor for just a short period, less than a year. “That would be the Finalizer.”

Kylo arches an eyebrow at the name but offers no further comment on the matter.

“It’s a pet project of mine,” Hux finds himself needing to explain. “The first in the line of a new class of Star Destoryers, twice the size of the current class of Star Destoryers with three times the power. Initial plans would put us with over three thousand turbolasers, which by using kyber crystals would have a regeneration rate significantly higher than those of our predecessors. I would a symbol of the First Order’s power-”

“Of your power,” Kylo corrects him, “Am I wrong in assuming that you see yourself as Captain of this vessel?”

“I’d have to be at least a Major to be given the honor.”

“Major Hux,” Kylo repeats, before shaking his head, “Doesn’t sound quite right.”

“It sounds better than Lieutenant or Captain.”

“I disagree. Lieutenant Hux had a nice ring to it, it’s how I’ve been remembering you all these years,” and just like that the casual mood between them becomes something else. The conversation that they’ve been skirting around since they entered the office suddenly comes to the forefront.

There are so many questions Hux wants to ask. Gaps in the time since they last saw each other and now, but he cannot bring the questions up. Not when being curious has so often been seen as a line never to be crossed. Kylo would answer him if he asked, Hux can see the expression on his face, the way he seems content to wait and watch Hux.

Hux refuses to give whatever reaction Kylo is expecting to get out of him.

“And here I was hoping you’d forgotten about me.”

\---

Their conversation in his office had gotten interrupted soon enough, Hux having been needed back in the control room, but when he left he felt as if a small weight had been lifted off of his shoulders. Though Kylo had not used his _gifts_ to relieve the pressure in Hux’s mind, just being in close proximity with him had seemed to do something to his composure.

Now he was able to focus on the tasks at hand without the need to pace across the floor or constantly check his chrono.

Such that the remaining hours to their destination had passed in no time at all. In fact, he was almost surprised when one of his lieutenants indicated they would be leaving hyperspace within minutes.

He’d left the bridge at that reminder, heading down to where the ship’s two transports were, knowing that Kylo would need to take one of them to reach the planet’s surface and would likely already be there prepping his chosen vessel for the journey.

His suspicions are proved correct, when he arrives into the ship’s hangar and finds most of his crew not so subtly watching one of the transports where a figure in a set of familiar black robes is talking with a small squadron of Hux’s stormtroopers.

The speaker stops the second Hux’s eyes are on him, turning ever so slightly so that he is returning Hux’s gaze.

“You’ve come to see me off then?”

“That is one of my duties as Captain.”

“Yes, of course,” Kylo replies, with a small nod of his head. “Thank you then, _Captain_ Hux.”

He knows better than to remark on the hint of amusement Kylo carries even now as he says Hux’s title. It will simply take him a bit of time to get used to, something Kylo should at least sympathize with since Hux has to get used to a whole new name.

“We’ll be here waiting for your return,” Hux says, watching as the trooper’s board the transport.

Kylo doesn’t move from his place, just stands there making unwavering eye contact with Hux.

 _Come with me_. That’s what his eyes are trying to say, Hux knows it as though a voice had whispered it inside of his mind.

When he hears the same words that had echoed around the inside of his head, fall from Kylo’s lips a moment later, it’s impossible for Hux to deny his request.

\---

It’s a child, a little girl, like so many others that he’d taken before, with rosey cheeks and long blonde hair hanging down her back. She’s terrified, tears streaming down her face as she’s pulled away from her parents.

His troopers are doing most of the work, pressing the muzzle of a blaster against the mother’s head in a silent threat, that if they try to fight this is won’t end well.

“We haven’t done anything wrong,” her husband insists, over and over again to the troopers, because they don’t understand. “Please, she hasn’t done anything wrong. We’re good, loyal, we pay respect the Order.”

There’s something in the back of his head as he watches the scene, a pressure that starts off as nothing before seeming to grow into something almost unmanageable. Hux rubs at his temples, the voice of the man going on and on, pleading for the life of his daughter, foolishly believing that his begging could change anything.

It would be all too easy to soothe their concerns, to insist that the girl will be safe with them, that she is going to be trained to be a Knight of Ren, but it is not Hux’s job to pacify people, to offer them empty promises.

If it was anyone’s job it should be -

“You’re right,” Kylo’s voice is deep, silencing all the frantic crying in an instant. Silence falls before he speaks again, “You’ve done nothing wrong.”

“Then why are you-”

“Not yet, at least.”

Somehow he knows before it happens.

In the back of his mind, he knew the second Kylo began to speak, that this was coming.

Watching it was something else entirely.

Watching his hand move to the saber at his waist. Igniting the blade. Swinging it down with a practiced precision.

It is only once the girl’s lifeless body falls to the ground that the voices start up again. But none of it matters, the frantic crying and shouting of the family, or even the confusion of his troopers at this sudden change in plan - not when Kylo, fresh from ending another’s life turns to look at Hux, his face illuminated in the red glow of his saber.

The whole galaxy stops in that instant.

\---

The first thing he does when he gets back on board the Exactor  is take a hot shower, a water one, because after how his day has been, he likes to think that he deserves it. The headache still hasn’t gone away, if anything it has gotten worse. He says as much to Kylo as they’re on the transport back to the ship. His lips at quirked up at the comment, accusing Hux of having _delicate sensibilities_ a notion which in itself was absurd.

Hux had done worse, was more than willing to do worse, and yet for some reason the way Kylo had looked after killing the girl had left him feeling as though something had awakened inside of him.

The hot water of his shower is a relief, a distraction from the world outside of this room. He has the luxury as Captain to have a private ‘fresher, enabling to take as long as he could ever need or want.

His hand is on his cock before he can even think about it.

Rationalizing this harder than he would like - a part of him likes to think that this is simply stress relief, that it’s just been too long and that doing this _one_ thing might be enough to finally relax the tension he’s been carrying since Kylo stepped on board his ship.

But that’s not true, because the person he’s imaging in his head, the person he all too easily can picture dropping to their knees before him, is none other than the Knight of Ren.

This isn’t the first time he brought himself off to the image of Kylo, but back then it had been Ben, the soft boy that had lain beside him and smoothed the tension from his figure with barely more than a touch. He had tried to mentally age him over the years, to smooth out the softness in his features.

The man Hux had imagined was nothing like the one that had appeared before him, but the attraction had not waned. If anything, after the events of today it had only increased.

Hux could still picture the look on his face, the darkness of his eyes as they’d met, the smooth motions of a practiced killer. He imagines stripping off Kylo’s layers, exposing his body as he once had before, but this time there would be a well sculpted chest, muscles strong from frequent use, but melting soft at Hux’s touch against him.

A groan falls from his lips, as he loses himself in the mental image of what might have happened had he invited Kylo in here with him, hand speeding up to chase the sensation. Pulling him into the shower, their naked bodies pressing together - if he closes his eyes and concentrates he can almost imagine that it would be Kylo’s hand in the place of his. Callouses on the palm of his hands from saber use, long fingers tightening around Hux’s cock, thumb rubbing over his slit.

His release takes him by surprise, slumping forward against the walls of the shower, his legs unwilling to hold him up any longer.

It isn’t until he’s out of the shower, and drying himself off that he realizes the name that had fallen from his lips was _Ben_.

\---

Even though Hux would have liked nothing more than to sleep through his six hour rest shift, there is something he has to do before he can even consider resting.

Thankfully, finding Kylo isn’t as difficult as he might have expected, though the Knight of Ren is not in the quarters delegated to him for the duration of his stay on board the Exactor, a few questions to his fellow officers find him on the observation deck, kneeling as he stares out the viewport with empty eyes.

He’s meditating, Hux knows as much now.

While normally it is considered poor form to interrupt a Knight’s meditation, some divine concerns passed like superstition through the years about what might befall a person that does, Hux cares not for those notions. Instead he presses his hand lightly to Kylo’s shoulders, as though to wake him from a slumber.

Kylo’s eyes open slowly, blink twice almost confused about his surroundings, before settling on Hux.

“General.”

“Captain,” Hux corrects, only slightly bothered by the certainty that had been in the other man’s voice.

“Captain,” Kylo corrects with a small nod, “You wished to speak with me?”

Hux gestured to himself as to indicate that this much was obvious. “I was under the impression Knight Kylo that your mission from Supreme Leader was to take the girl back to become one of your knights?”

“My mission was not from the Supreme Leader, it was from the head of the Knights,” Kylo replies, “Though that was the parameters he outlined for me.”

“Parameters you ignored.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

Kylo seems just as surprised by the question as Hux as to have voiced it.

“You know why.”

He wants to insist that he doesn’t, that if he knew why he wouldn’t be asking this very question.

Before he can voice that notion an image comes into his mind. The temple that he had rescued a young _Ben_ from, the bodies of the other children scattered across the ground, and then there was the matter of the dream he’d had that night, one which felt far too real.

He knows.

A part of him had always wondered why the Supreme Leader would save one boy and not all of them, just as he had wondered where the monster that had left behind nothing but ruined bodies had gone.

Suddenly it all made sense.

“You killed the children at the temple,” Hux says, it’s not a question, because he _knows_.

Kylo acknowledges this with a nod of his head. “It was necessary.”

Hux understands all too well about doing whatever is necessary for the good of the First Order.

“You’re not afraid of me,” Kylo says, sounding almost gleeful by this revelation, “I had thought you would be, that knowing this would make you despise me.”

“As you said, it was necessary.”

“And what if killing you was necessary, would you fear me then?”

“I don’t fear death.”

Kylo snorts. “How noble.”

With that he turns away from Hux, resuming his previous position, head bent forward slightly. Hux can sense a dismissal as easily as anyone else, and though Kylo has no right to dismiss him - the superior office on his vessel - he walks away nevertheless.

\---

He wakes to the sound of his ship in active motion, the hubbub that had surrounded them less than twenty-four hours when the Knight of Ren had boarded the ship seems set to begin once again. This time the devote clamoring for once last chance to make a good impression, to earn even as little as a look cast in their direction.

The notion revolts Hux so much that he cannot help himself from asking, as he is supposed to be wishing Kylo well and thanking him for having been on board, “What is it like to be treated like a god?”

He swears he sees something like the hint of a smirk on Kylo’s lips, but the expression is gone before Hux can latch on it. His voice low and unaffected, as he replies, “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

 


	3. legatum

He’s never liked forest planets.

There was silence in the forests, trees hovering over everything, the sun blocked out by the greenery. Standing beside one of these trees, with trunks that seemed to stretch into the atmosphere, made it easy to feel inconsequential. To feel small compared to the world around him.

“I can feel your stress from here.”

A voice cuts across the silence of the forest, echoing through the space so that for a second Hux cannot tell what direction it is coming from. Though perhaps that is the point. He has a habit of doing that, throwing his voice around with those powers of his to confuse his targets. Having seen it in action, plenty of times, Hux doesn’t even bother turning to look for him.

“Have you finished collecting whatever it is you needed us to come to Endor for?”

“I have,” Kylo responds, this time stepping out of the foliage to reveal himself. His dark robes are a bit askew, his cloak lost somewhere in the forest, but in his arms he cradles a box made of reflective durasteel.

Hux spares the box one quick glance, it’s form offers no answer to what is inside of his, but he is certain that Kylo will tell him at some point.

He had been fond to discover that Kylo enjoyed sharing his results. Initially he would mask them in cryptic statements and guessing games, but eventually the need to show off would outweigh the need to allude the air of mystery that the Knights of Ren liked to emulate.

This was one of the reasons they worked so well as a team, one of the reasons the head of the Knights had been more than willing to send Kylo on any of the missions that would have their paths crossing. They were _efficient_ , those were the words that showed up in the report.

Hux had always liked to be called efficient.

Though this particular mission was a bit different from the others. For one it wasn’t sanctioned by the Knights, nor even known to them if the way Kylo had been insistent on cultivating secrecy was any indicator. That had had Hux suspicious enough when Kylo had turned up on the Exactor without any prior notice, but coupled with the fact that Kylo had spent most of his time in his quarters rather than wandering the ship, as he was fond to when stationed on the Exactor, had him curious to the exact nature of what Kylo had come here to retrieve.

“Shall we return to the Exactor, Commandant Hux, or would you rather linger? You seem to be enjoying yourself.”

“Kriff off, Kylo,” Hux says, making a rude gesture in his direction, “It’s _Major_ Hux.”

“You’re always changing your title, it’s very confusing,” Kylo says. His lips form a sort of mocking smile, one Hux has become far too familiar with. “You can’t expect me to keep up with every change.”

They’d had three missions together since Hux’s promotion. Kylo’s excuses were weak, especially since the last time he came around there had been a bottle of congratulatory corellian brandy waiting for him.

“Don’t worry, it shouldn’t change again,” he gives a dry reassurance, “If all goes well I’ll be Major Hux until I die.”

\---

As expected Kylo eventually finds his way to Hux’s quarters. The door sliding open as though of its own accord could only mean one thing, Hux doesn’t even dignify him with a response instead continuing to work on his datapad. That is until the box, that Kylo had been carrying around obsessively since their acquisition of it on the moon of Endor, is placed on his desk.

It is with that that Hux finally lets out an annoyed sigh.

“Are you finally going to tell me what this is?”

“My legacy,” Kylo says. He says it as though Hux should be able to understand completely, when he doesn’t, Kylo lets out an annoyed sigh. “Do you know who I am?”

“You’re Kylo, Knight of Ren,” Hux replies.

“Before that.”

“Ben?”

This earns him a grimace.

“If you insist on being cryptic then you might as well leave. I am not fond of guessing games.”

Kylo does not go.

Instead he settles down onto the small couch in Hux’s quarters, lounging across it with a casual air.

“Or make yourself comfortable,” Hux says, not bothering to hide his displeasure.

“Tell me, are you aware of those that call themselves the Resistance?”

Uncertain of where exactly this is going, Hux nods his head. “A group of radical Republic supports, foolishly believing they can hold a candle to our power. Yes, I am aware of them.”

“And their leader?”

“The former princess of Alderaan?” This time he makes his disdain clear. “What does she have to do with anything?”

Kylo is silent for a long moment, his eyes falling shut, features closing off. If Hux didn’t know any better he would’ve thought that he was meditating, from the almost peaceful look that is so rare to Kylo’s features. Even Hux’s tension seem to relax, the air around them suddenly easier to breathe.

“Stop that.”

Kylo’s eyes snap open, and just like that the calm air dissipates.

“In another life I could’ve been a king,” Kylo says. “Could you imagine?”

“I’d prefer not to.”

“She was my mother,” Kylo mutters the words, so that Hux has to strain to hear it, but when it does everything falls together.

He had heard the stories, rumors that swirled during meetings about the leader of the Resistance, a General Organa. She had been one of the so-called _heroes_ of the old rebellion, though truly she was nothing more than a radical terrorist. There were other rumors surrounding her, rumors that no man could shoot her down, the blaster fire always just missing her, or the way she seemed to know what those around her were thinking with just one look.

As he turns to look at Kylo, he cannot help but search his features for something similar to the holos he had seen of the Resistance General. Though his search turns up with unsatisfying results. He can see something in the eyes, deep dark pools that stare back at Hux, but otherwise there’s nothing.

Nothing he supposes other than the _Force_.

“So that’s where you got your mystical powers,” Hux says.

Kylo wrinkles his nose at Hux’s description of the Force.

“She got it from her father, Darth Vader, my grandfather.”

He’s never been afraid of Kylo before, doesn’t intend to start now, but something jolts inside of him. Everyone has heard of Lord Vader, of his legacy, of the power her wielded in the glory days of the empire. If Kylo was telling the truth -

“I am.”

Normally he would be unnerved by how Kylo seems to be able to read his thoughts, but for a moment Hux brushes that aside. “What is in the box?”

“Kriff the box.”

“Kylo, why did you go to Endor? What did you-”

“Major Hux, has anyone told you what happens to people that ask too many questions?”

He hates that those words have enough power to silence him.

“Tell me about your family?”

“Excuse me,” Hux says, nearly getting whiplash at the sudden change in conversation.

“Tell me about your family,” Kylo repeats, “I’ve told you about mine, fair is fair, Major.”

He squints suspiciously in Kylo’s direction. “Talking about my family is the last thing I want to do.”

Even mentioning the notion brings Hux back to a place he doesn’t want to be in. Finally now, he was able to get out from his father’s shadow, no longer were his fellow officers looking down on him as the _younger_ Hux. He was a Major, a rank higher than the only other living person that held his name. Hux was still waiting for that sense of accomplishment to sink in, for him to finally feel that sense of satisfaction that came with reaching the rank he had always wanted in life.

No longer was he an officer on the board of the Stormtrooper program, no longer a part of the academy. He was the leader of the Stormtrooper program. He was designing a new series of flagships for the First Order. He was -

“Don’t tell me you’re honestly satisfied with that,” Kylo drawls.

This time the invasion of thought offends him, such that he can no longer sit at his desk and watch Kylo lounge around his living quarters as if he owns the place.

“Get out.”

He expects Kylo to fight him, to insist upon staying, but instead he rises from the couch just as fluidly as he had settled upon it. He says, “We’ll continue this discussion later,” before sweeping out of the room, with his cape twirling behind him.

\---

It is only the next morning as he is getting ready for his shift on the bridge, that he realizes Kylo’s box is still sitting on his desk. Hux stares at his expression reflected back in the durasteel surface of the box. His fingers skirt along the edges of the box, searching for some sort of lock or mechanism at which to open it. He’s not too surprised to find out that there isn’t any.

With an annoyed sigh, Hux grabs the box, and heads out, determined to drop it off at where Kylo  is staying while on board the Exactor and be done with it. Maybe then he can get through the next day of Kylo being here without any further distractions from the Knight.

Wishful thinking.

Hux comes to a stop in front of the room they had given to Kylo, his hand moving towards the call button, but before can press the button to let Kylo know that he is there, the door slides open.

“Good morning, Major, to what do I owe the pleasure,” the voice comes from somewhere in the room, though with the lights at zero percent it is impossible for Hux to see where it is coming from. He slips into the room, wishing that he could see where Kylo was.

There’s a small sigh coming from somewhere in the room, right as the door slides shut. “Lights to five percent.”

Five percent isn’t much, but at least now he can see an outline of Kylo lounging on his bed. He’s wearing nothing more than loose sleep pants, the small hint of light showing the shadows of his exposed torso.

“You forgot this,” Hux says, setting the box pointedly drawn on the ground.

“I know,” Kylo says, this time rising from the bed. He doesn’t go to the box, but instead stops and stands in front of Hux. “We never finished our discussion.”

“I was hoping you would let it drop,” Hux admits.

“A foolish hope,” Kylo replies. “You dislike your father, I understand this, I dislike mine too.”

“Congratulations, we have something in common, should I alert the Supreme Leader?” Hux doesn’t even bother to hide his sarcasm, and in return he is rewarded with one of Kylo’s rare laughs.

“Tell me about your mother?”

He doesn’t mean to answer, doesn’t mean to dignify Kylo with the answers he seems to require for whatever mental scheme Hux cannot understand. “I don’t have one.”

“Everyone has a mother,” Kylo insists, before pausing and tilting his head to the side, “Well, I suppose not everyone. Your troopers must believe themselves not to have one since you took them away as children, and there are some species which are capable of procreating with nothing more than their own bodies. Then there’s clones-”

“I’m not a clone,” Hux says sharply.

“Ah, a sensitive subject,” Kylo latches onto the one thing he can use to push Hux. Something Kylo has had a habit of doing as their interactions have continued. He should’ve known better than to given him the opportunity. “So, you’ve considered it before? I mean, you do look shockingly alike, I’ve seen the holo, and you’re technically - what Brendol the second? Or is it the younger?”

“I’m leaving.”

\---

 

All he wants to do is go back into his room and sleep.

His command crew had continued to disappoint, apparently causing far more trouble than he could have ever have expected in the day and a half that he had been stuck on the moon of Endor. There was incorrectly filed paperwork, a coolant leak that nearly shut down their hyperdrive, and some nonse about a protest among radar technicians about the dining facilities that Hux had been entirely too tired to even begin to consider dealing with.

When Captain Phasma had none too gently suggested that he go to his room and get rest, Hux had been all too willing to take the offered reprieve.

Which was why the sight of someone lounging on his couch with a datapad balanced on their knees caused Hux to let out an annoyed sigh and rub at his temples where he could already feel a headache beginning to grow.

“When are you going to get your own ship,” Hux says, not too gently, shrugging his great coat off and hanging it onto the back of his desk chair, all while doing his best to ignore Kylo’s presence as if doing so will convince him to leave.

“Soon, I imagine,” Kylo is unperturbed by the strange greeting.

“I look forward to it.”

This time he does get a response, and when he finally looks over at Kylo, the look on his face is almost offended.

“You say that as though you won’t miss me.”

“I won’t,” Hux insists, though it feels more like a lie than he would like to admit.

“You will, I can sense it,” Kylo insists. “You’ve had a rough day.”

“Can you _sense_ that as well?”

“I could take it away, if you’d let me,” he accompanies this offer with a vague movement of his fingers.

At least this time he isn’t making the move to do it himself, they’d talked about this before. The unease he felt whenever Kylo made his way into his mind, the fact that he was very much not interested in it ever happening again.

It wasn’t that it felt uncomfortable, if anything it felt more than comfortable. It was the feeling that came after, when Kylo moved away from him, when he realized how easily his mind had been controlled. He would rather keep his anxiety than let Kylo bend him to his will.

He says none of this, instead he picks up the line of conversation that they had dropped.

“Even if you are to get your own ship, it is not as if we will never see each other again. You and I have a habit of running into each other,” Hux reminds him.

These words do nothing to soothe the displeased look on Kylo’s face.

A displeased look that while Hux does not mirror, he can feel deep inside of him when after a moment Kylo says, “We may not.”

“Explain.”

Kylo doesn’t at first. He moves slowly, slinking out of his lounging position, and walking about Hux’s room in a fashion that Hux knows far too well. He is _pacing,_ a practice Hux himself does whenever nervous, but he has never seen Kylo nervous. Normally whenever he seems to feel any sort of emotion too strongly, he meditates it away, features falling flat and lifeless until it is gone.

Now though he moves across the room.

Hux is nearly transfixed by the sight.

“I was not _recruited_ like the other Knights of Ren, as you surely remember,” when Hux nods in agreement to this point, Kylo continues, “It is my destiny to become the greatest Force user to have ever have existed, to bring balance to the Force as was my grandfather’s destiny before… It is now, I, who must take up the mantle. Snoke told me this years before, that I was destined to rule, but I was too young then. There was training that needed to take place, this though, coming to Endor, retrieving the mask of my grandfather. It will grant me the last bit of power that I need, it will allow me to achieve my destiny.”

“What does that even mean?”

“It means that when I return to the citadel, I will kill the leader of the Knights of Ren, and in reward become the leader of our unit, positioned at the right hand of the Supreme Leader. I will become the primary apprentice, the one who is to be privy to his thoughts and plans. I will no longer be Knight Kylo, but _Lord_ Ren.”

“Then, I suppose you are right, I have never met the leader of your order,” Hux admits, he cannot help the sadness that clings to his tone. It was his own fault for getting foolishly attached to this man, but they were friends, and Hux had so few of those that he could not help but be selfish. He wants to beg Kylo not to do this, because either outcome leaves them unable to see each other. “This is to be your goodbye, I take it.”

“Yes,” Kylo says, stopping his pacing to stand right in front of Hux. “That is it, a goodbye.”

“Well, I hope you’re not hoping for anything sentimental, because-” His next words are swallowed by the pressure of another mouth on his. It comes with a hesitant pressure, as though this were the first time the man before him had ever kissed anyone. But when Hux finally realizes what is happening, and moves his lips as to kiss back, the confidence that Kylo had been lacking suddenly making it’s appearance.

There is something almost like regret inside of Hux now, regret that he had not done this sooner, not taken the action to bridge the space between them, when Hux had spent far too many nights on his own, bringing himself off to the image of Kylo.

There’s a moan against his lips, hand tightening against his hips.

“We can do that,” Kylo says, when he pulls back, panting for breath, “All of that.”

When Hux tells him to, “Keep out of my head,” it is a weak protest, especially as he steers him backwards to the couch which had only been recently vacated. He pushes him down onto the couch, looking down at the man beneath him, with his lips already growing plump from having been kissed, a red color rising up on the pale skin of his neck, and dark eyes that meet Hux’s with so much want that he barely stops himself from jumping Kylo right then and there.

“I want to take you. I want you to leave this ship with the memory of me, the lingering pressure, so that I’m impossible to forget,” Hux says.

His words are answered with a moan, the word, “Please,” falling from all too ready lips.

They kiss again, this time each working to divest the other of their layers of clothes. Hux’s fingers fumble with the complex locking mechanism of Kylo’s belt, letting out a noise of success against his partner’s lips as he finally get is open.

He loses track of what they’re doing at one point, when Kylo’s quick fingers have freed his cock from his slacks. The pressure of the hand he had fantasised on him for far too long finally being there, nearly causes Hux to lose the last shred of his composure. He has to stop kissing Kylo as he remembers how to breath, their foreheads resting against each other as Hux struggles to do more than gasp. A process made infinitely harder as Kylo sets himself to the task of jerking Hux off with skill.

“You’ve done this before,” Hux says.

Kylo’s lips press a small kiss to his cheek before answering, “To myself. The practice is similar when performed on another.”

“You’ve never give another man a handjob before?”

“I’ve never done anything with a partner before,” Kylo admits his virginity with such ease, as though this were simply a fact that was irrelevant to their proceedings. As if Hux had not considered the thought himself, bringing himself off at night to the thought that the Knights of Ren were to be chaste, and that he might be the man to corrupt one.  

“Kriff - you can’t just,” Hux squeezes his eyes shut, mentally willing himself not to come so quickly.

If this is Kylo’s first time then he needs to do this right. If this is their last time, their _only_ time, he needs to be the best partner imaginable.

He bats Kylo’s hand away from his cock, unable to stop himself from letting out a noise almost like a whimper from the lack of pressure even though he was the one to initiate it.

“Hux, _please_.”

“There’s lube in my top desk drawer, I’ll be right back, just give me a second to-”

“No need,” Kylo says, stretching the hand that had been previously occupied with Hux’s cock out and in the direction of the desk. There’s the sound of a drawer opening by invisible hands, before the small bottle of lube come flying across the room into Kylo’s hand. The bottle is in turn pressed into Hux’s hand. “As you were, _Major_.”

He doesn’t mean to moan, but he cannot help it, bringing titles into the bedroom has always been a fantasy of his. How many times had he dreamed of Kylo moaning out his new title, and now to hear it from those very lips. It is almost too much all over again.

Hux applies a generous amount of lube to his fingers, more than he would have had this not been Kylo’s first time, before bringing them down to Kylo’s entrance. He can feel Kylo tense slightly as Hux’s index finger circles lightly around his entrance.

“This might hurt,” Hux warns him, “Just trust me, it will get easier. Enjoyable even.”

“Just get on with it,” Kylo says. Titling his head back so that he does not have to watch Hux anymore. In this position is neck is bared, the pale lines of his skin, smattered with dark freckles and a faint red from his clear arousal. Kylo is tantalizing, and Hux cannot help himself from leaning forward to press a kiss against that throat. A kiss that he accompanies with the first breach of Kylo’s body.

He is tight as expected, wiggling a little at the intrusion, but by the time he is loose enough that Hux can get another finger inside of him, noises of pleasure are escaping Kylo’s lips.

“You - I want you,” Kylo all but begs, and Hux is more than willing to give it to him.

He removes his fingers from Kylo’s body, soothes his disappointment with a quick kiss, before going back to the bottle of lube, and this time spreading it out over his cock. He lines himself up with Kylo’s entrance, this time foregoing the warning about the tightness, and instead pressing into the warm body beneath him.

For a second neither of them can seem to breathe, Hux forcing himself to stay still, not just so that Kylo can adjust to the pressure, but also because it is so tight that Hux is certain he would come if he moved too quickly.

It is only when Kylo’s voice breaks over the word, “Move,” that Hux finally does.

When he does it is worth the wait, in fact it is worth everything that built up to this moment. They move together as if this was what they had always been meant to do, as if their bodies were made solely for each other. Nothing before had ever felt like how Kylo feels beneath him, and Hux can easily imagine that nothing else will ever compare.

He doesn’t know if he says this outloud, or if Kylo is in his head, because Kylo’s speaking up, offering quiet reassurances, that turn into broken moans.

With other partners Hux had always wanted a quick fuck, something hot and heavy, pounding into another person to just get the relief that he needs, but it’s different with Kylo. Hux lets him set the pace, and when he feels close to his own release, Hux brings a hand between them to grasp Kylo’s cock.

It doesn’t take much after that. A few more thrusts and Hux is coming, unable to stop himself. Even though he intends to continue to work Kylo through his orgasm it doesn’t turn out to be necessary, because he’s coming at the same time spilling hot over Hux’s fingers, broken moans falling from his lips sounding almost as though somewhere in the middle of it all he said, “Hux.”

He doesn’t realize that somewhere in the middle of all of that his eyes had started to water until he feels Kylo’s hand soft against his cheek brushing a stray tear away. He buries his head against Kylo’s chest, unwilling to answer the question that had been unspoken on his features.

There was nothing to say.

Yet somehow, Kylo found the words Hux couldn’t even think of. “We could have been doing this for the past year.”

\---

At some point they make it into his bed, somewhere between rounds two and three they fall tumbling onto the sheets together, it’s there where he wakes up in the morning.

The lights are at five percent, dim enough that it is near impossible for Hux to make out much of anything in the room, yet just enough that he can see a form that must be Kylo sitting at the end of the bed, slowly doing up his boots.

“You’re leaving,” Hux says, it’s not a question, not when the signs are clear before him.

He expected this.

And from the way Kylo startles slightly, jerking forward, he has assumed correctly.

The thought of that makes a bitter bile seem to rise up inside of Hux’s stomach, before he can remind himself that it would’ve been better that way. Easily to let his attachment to this Knight of Ren die.

“We already had our goodbye,” Kylo says, after a moment, not turning to look at him.

“Let me wish you good luck then,” Hux offers.

“The Force will guide me, luck has nothing to do with it.”

Even half asleep, Hux has it in him to snort at that notion. “The _Force_ doesn’t control everything.”

If he had wanted a reaction out of Kylo, he had finally succeeded, the knight rising from the bed in a huff, but not before turning to look at Hux. It’s too dark to make out his features properly, but Hux can feel the scrutinizing gaze on him.

Subconsciously he adjusts the sheet draped over his hips, a movement that seems absurd in hindsight since Kylo had certainly seen him in less, the boxers that hang around his hips offer far more modesty than he had shown with Kylo mere hours before.

“You don’t believe in anything, do you?”

“I believe in what I can see,” Hux insists. “I’ve seen your tricks, but that does not mean that there is a divine power influencing the action of every living thing. You Knights or Jedi or whatever you’re calling yourself, it’s nothing special, anyone can swing a sword around.”

He sense for a moment that he might have pushed too far. The headache that sometimes comes and goes returns briefly as a hint of pressure against Hux’s skull, just as Kylo reaches down to release his saber from his belt.

A moment later Kylo thumbs the controls igniting the blade, and casting the room in a red glow.

It is easier to see Kylo’s features in the light of the saber, he’s not angry, not exactly, but that emotion lingers there just beneath the surface coupled with the same sort of hunger that had been all too prevalent last night.

The blade snaps shut, the room dark once more, though when Hux’s eyes adjust to the darkness, he sees that the saber is being held out towards him. The unignited blade offered up so willingly that Hux can scarcely believe his eyes.  

“It is as you said, Major, anyone can swing a sword.”

When it hits him that this is not a cruel trick, Hux moves forward, letting the sheet fall down, as he rises to the challenge.

The lightsaber is lighter than he had expected, the metal cool too the touch. He settles his hand into what he thinks is an approximate of Kylo’s traditional grip, his thumb brushing hesitantly against the switch.

“Well?”

He presses the button instead of answering.

There’s no way to describe it, the feeling of having a lightsaber in his hand. The weight of the weapon is completely different from a sword, pulling his arm forward with an unseen pressure all while somehow managing to feel just as light as it had before being ignited.

But it’s so much more than just the weight of the weapon, there’s a power in it, the feeling of harnessing something which was not meant to be controlled by the average man.

He tells Kylo none of this.

Instead simply repeating his earlier sentiment, “Any man can swing a sword.”

 


	4. persona

A centralized hub for First Order activity.

It had been a half-hearted proposal of his during the a meeting what felt like ages ago, the insistence that with the growing presence of Resistance supporters that it might be beneficial to find an uninhabited planet or moon upon which the First Order could establish a base of its own.

Currently the academy had been meant to function as a sort of de facto base of operations, Arkanis housing both the officer training academy as well as the trooper program had led to it being a popular place for meetings when multiple high ranking officers were required to be in the same place at any given time.

Though ever since his father’s mysterious passing, returning to the academy had left Hux with a lingering sense of unpleasantness.  

The proposal for a new base had been approved of, he’d even begun doing some preliminary scouting efforts, when the news had come in - a change of plans, of a sort. Not only did the Supreme Leader agree that creating a base for the First Order was a good idea, but there was other plans in the works, a superweapon to be like the Death Stars of the Empire, but on a grander scale.

Spearheading this new project was to be a honor, an honor that was apparently not to be his alone.

The notion that he would need the approval of the Knights of Ren, that their powers regarding the _Force_ of all things, would help to choose which of Hux’s locations would be most efficient was absurd. Anyone who could read reports, could see the facts before them, and yet the Supreme Leader seems to rely on the feelings of a wannabe mystic to determine which of Hux’s possible planets would be most suitable to build Starkiller upon was absurd.

He’d said as much.

Not to the Supreme Leader directly, of course, even as a Major in the First Order he was not afforded _that_ luxury, but the words had been mentioned to others in an undertone that might have been considered traitorous had they come from the lips of another.

He says them now, when he should be giving a proper greeting to the Finalizer’s most _honored_ guest, “As far as I am concerned, your presence is unnecessary. You would do best not to hinder our progress, Ren.”

The Leader of the Knights, forced upon his ship does not say anything at first, his expression unreadable behind the mask obscuring his features.

When he does, it is with a carefully modulated voice so that Hux is unable to get a reading on his tone, “Lord Ren.”

“Excuse me?”

“My title is _Lord_ Ren,” he says, “Something it would due you well to remember _Major_ Hux, as it is I, who out rank you on this vessel.”

He feels it somewhere deep inside of him, and irrational hatred of the figure before him in the dark flowing cape and a mask hiding his features and distorting his every word.

 _Lord_ Ren.

He had often thought about the mysterious figure, over the two years since he last saw Kylo, he thought of it more times than he would care to admit. A pain that came to him in the middle of the night feeling like loneliness and desperation. Kylo had insisted that even if he succeeded, it was likely that they would never seen each other again, that the leader of the Knights of Ren did not take missions that had him mingling with the First Order’s command crew - so knowing whether Kylo had survived the confrontation that he had been desperate for had been impossible to guess, but now the answer stared him clear in the face.

The masked figure before him was Lord Ren, and Kylo was undoubtedly dead, too sure of himself and his so called power, too foolish to have bided his time.

It is impossible to read Ren’s expression, but he feels as if underneath the mask, he must be gazing at Hux with scrutiny, easy to see the rage that seethes just beneath the surface.

“We are not here to bend to your every whim and will _Lord_ Ren,” Hux says, staring into the eye slits of the mask, “Regardless of what the Supreme Leader thinks your purpose here is. I have briefings prepared for your perusal and travel trajectories already mapped out, if there are any initial concerns you might have I advise you to express them now, otherwise _my_ men will act under _my_ orders as planned.”

He does not give a dismissal, does not wait to be given one in turn.

Leaving is easier than standing in that creature's presence any longer.

\---

Hux spends half the night waiting for a comm from the newest member of the Finalizer’s crew, a complaint from Ren regarding the schedule of planets that they were to scope out, but in the end nothing comes.

He’s not sure whether that is meant to feel like a relief.

A small part of him had hoped for another confrontation with Ren before they reached their first destination, had hoped to have a moment in private to speak to the man in the mask, though he is not certain what he would say if he had the chance, what he would ask.

He knew what he wanted to know, the fate of the man who had once been a nothing more than a boy before his eyes. Had he gone easily, cut down so quickly that it was almost painless, or was his insubordination tortured out of him. The First Order had never been known for its kindness to traitors, and while the Knights of Ren technically existed out of the hierarchy of the First Order, he could not imagine their practices being too different.

It was a reality he simply had to face.

Kylo, the Knight of Ren that had been so persistent in his presence that Hux had been drawn to him instinctively, was dead.

Ben, the boy that Hux had washed the blood of those he’d murdered off of, was dead.

These were facts.

He opens up a bottle of Corellian Brandy, pours a generous helping into the glass on his desk.

It’s not mourning, not exactly. In truth he had mourned him long ago, assumed that he was gone before the facts were presented with him.

But it feels like it almost count be.

\---

Their first stop is a sand planet nearly at the Republic’s Outer Rim, one like so many others before it, this one not yet taken into the hands of the notorious gangs that make the rim planets their stomping ground. There’s a non-sentient native species to deal with, but otherwise no real problems with the planet, unless one counted the dry air and unbearable heat.

And the sand.

Personally it hadn’t been one of his picks for the base, rather something suggested by a fellow officer within the First Order for its location. Desert planets, much like forest planets were not particular favorites of his.

Hux was almost thankful, when after ten minutes on the planet, Ren had decided it unfit for the development of Starkiller base, trudging back onto the transport to return them to the Finalizer with little pomp and circumstance. The first thing he had done upon settling in his seat - dignity be damned - was shuck of his boots and tip them over to rid them of the sand that had somehow managed to make its way inside of them.

“Major Hux,” Ren’s voice, causes Hux to stop in his actions, snapping his head up towards where the Knight of Ren is leaning against the wall of the transport.

“Yes, Ren?”

“Do not waste my time on planets which you yourself do not think to be suitable,” Ren says, “It is taxing, and I have far better uses for my time than to examine places you have already seen fit to dismiss.”

There’s no way Ren could know that Hux had nearly dismissed the planet himself, unless-

“Get out of my head,” Hux snaps.

A pressure that he hadn’t even recognized as anything out of the ordinary fades from the back of his head, what he had thought the beginnings of a minor headache turning out to be so much more.

He can’t tell through the mask’s modulator, but when Ren says, “My apologies,” he is certain he can detect a hint of sarcasm.

\---

Three more planets go in a similar fashion, Ren scopes out the transport, stomps his feet through whatever the natural environment is, and declares it unfit within ten minutes or less of exploration.

An experience which in repetition only serves to aggravate Hux more and more.

This planet though had been one of Hux’s selections, a planet that had more bodies of water than landmass with a strong core that created hot springs, a core that should have been more than warm enough to power the Starkiller weapon. Had he been able to select the planet without needing Ren’s approval, this would have been the planet Hux would’ve selected.

To see it dismissed so easily like the others before it sent a ripple of frustration through him, one that Hux could not easily contain.

“Is there any reason for dismissing yet another planet or do you simply exist to aggravate me?”

“I don’t like it.”

“Excuse me,” Hux says.

Ren, the dense fool that he is, simply repeats the sentiment, “I don’t like it.”

“Yes, please, continue to elaborate,” Hux doesn’t bother hiding his sarcasm this time.

“Major, you cannot possibly understand the complexities of the Force, and your lack of belief would make explaining them a useless pursuit,” Ren says. “Your disappointment that this planet was not selected is noted, but unless you can alter the Force energy of this place, there is nothing that you can do to sway my opinion and no reason for me to explain myself.”

Hux could appreciate appeals to logic, and the conclusion Ren had come to was almost logical, though he did not expect it from Ren of all people. 

He brings a hand up to rub at his temple and the headache he can feel beginning to form there, “Tell me, Ren, what is it exactly you’re looking for?”

Any hint of the previous logic is gone in the instant Ren seems to shrug, his robes fluttering from the movement, “Not this.”

\---

It has been a long time since his frustrations had led him to a training room, normally he could deal with these things in the comfort of his rooms. He has a list of ways to calm the flows of his anxieties as instructed by an academy physician long ago.

Fingers, digging into his palms to ground him.

Pace, in private where no one can witness his horrible habit.

Breathe, in and out in counts of seven.

Sleep, take with two of the blue pills and lay down.

Remember, not to let his anxiety control him.

Throwing himself into self destructive habits like overindulging in drink or hitting a punching bag until his knuckles are split is the exact opposite of what the physician would have advised. But ever since Ren had boarded the Finalizer, the destructive habits had had a way of winning out over his better judgement.

Not that it makes anything easier.

That realization alone should have been enough to stop him, to get him to pull his punches, to call it a night, but he couldn’t.

Instead, his fist slams to the bag harder this time, letting out a noise almost like triumph as he feels the skin finally break, blood running over fingers still clenched far too tightly. If he focuses on the sensation he can imagine that it’s not his blood running over his fingers, but the blood of someone else, of the very person he would like nothing more than to punch in the face at this very moment, if only to see that the monster behind the mask truly has a _face_.

“Careful now, some might consider those thoughts treasonous.”

“How many times do I have to kriffing tell you to stay out of my mind,” Hux snaps.

He doesn’t turn around to look at who he knows is surely there behind him.

How or when Ren had arrived in the training salle without Hux noticing was beyond him. He wouldn’t give Ren the pleasure of having to ask. Instead sending another punch towards the bag before him, all while imagining it’s Ren that he is punching. It leaves a bloody stain behind on the bag.

Ren must still be in there because he laughs a second later.

“I didn’t expect you to become so _violent,_ Major.”

This does get him to turn around, barely restraining an incredulous look from find its way onto his face. “You know nothing about me, Ren.”

The mask gives him nothing to read, nor does the relaxed posture as Ren leans against the wall of the training salle. It’s increasingly frustrating to get no feedback in this way.

“I know more than you might suspect.”

“What,” Hux snaps, “Because you can use your mystical powers to see inside people’s heads? Congratulations on that one.”

“Do not underestimate the power of the Force.”

“I have had about enough of the _Force_ for one lifetime, so why don’t you go back to wherever the Supreme Leader keeps you locked up to do his bidding and-” Whatever else he’d been meaning to say falls silent on his lips.

There’s a pressure barely there against his chest, choking at his lungs. It feels like an anxiety attack too late to stop, and for a second Hux nearly gives into the feeling, loses himself in the tension that is shaking through him, before he remembers that he has no reason to feel this way, that moments before it was anger coursing through his not anxiety. With that realization the anger comes back full force.

“You bastard,” Hux hisses when he regains a hint of himself, glaring at the mask as best he can manage. “Have you not taken enough from me?”

Those words seem to do something, because a second later the pressure is gone, every will to fight is gone from him. The loss is so shocking that he cannot help but stumble forward, his legs no longer willing to hold him up. He jolts as his knees hit the ground, forcing air that is now easier to breath into his lungs with greedy gulps.

“I hate you,” he says, unwilling to look up from the ground to where Ren is still standing.

The words, “I know,” come back in a barely more than whispered reply, before the sound of feet walking away lets him know that he is alone in the training salle once more.

\---

His knuckles burn the next morning, he’d forgotten to apply bacta before taking the medication that had promised him a dreamless sleep.

In the end, it hadn’t mattered, his nights were still haunted by dreams that seemed far too real. It had been raining in this one, just like the past few nights dreams - _raining, and fighting, and a flash of red coming down_ \- he’d seen the same scenes over and over again that they were impossible to forget upon waking.

A part of him, a part that will forever insist in a disbelief in the Force and everything that goes along with it, refuses to admit that the rain dreams all started the night after Ren boarded the Finalizer.

Hux could ask, ‘ _Was it raining when you killed him?’_ , that’s all it would take. But he scraps the idea every morning by time he’s finished his first cup of caf.

Still there’s a moment, standing in the transport waiting to check out yet another planet, that he meets the gaze of Ren’s helmet and hears a voice that sounds so familiar it hurts in the back of his head, simply answering, ‘ _Yes_.’

\--

Relief.

That was what he had felt for a solid ten seconds. He’d let himself bask in the feeling, because this planet had potential, hadn’t been dismissed like so many others before it.

When Ren had said that he needed more time to observe the planet he’d saw it as a sign that finally he might be free of the Knight.

They had wandered away from the troopers shortly after arriving on the planet, Ren insisting that he could _feel_ something and needed to be alone, but since time alone was the last thing the Knight of Ren had ever granted him, Hux had stubbornly pushed on, following Ren deeper into the planet away from their transport.

Until Ren had seemed to vanish into thin air, a trick of the Force, one moment he’d been there paces in front of Hux and then he was just _gone_.

It was an forest planet, though here the trees were covered in a heavy layer of snow, and maybe it was the memory of the last time he had been on a forest planet with a Knight that brought him back to it, or maybe it was how he had fumbled for his comm unit to inform his troopers to come find him only to get static in return.

Hux hates this, hates everything that has led up to this moment.

Lost on planet where it would take who knows how long for his men to come find his cold frozen corpse. Maybe that had been Ren’s plan after all, to lose him in these woods, to let him die on his own accord, that way _Lord_ Ren wouldn’t have to dirty his hands.

He’s wearing gloves, unable to dig his fingers into his palms, instead he simply curls his fist tighter letting the pain of his barely healed split knuckle ground him in the moment.

 By the time he realizes what is happening, it's too late to stop it. The shivers that had been wracking his body are more than from just the cold, and his chest tightens uncontrollably such that he has to force each gasp of air out from his lungs.

“Major,” Ren’s carefully modulated voice sounds almost concerned, as if that were possible.

He must have returned at some point, though Hux isn’t certain when that was, his sense of time and place slowly slipping away as less and less oxygen makes it successfully to his lungs.

Had Hux been in his right mind he might have told Ren to _kriff off_ as he was fond of doing, but he can’t open his mouth to say the words, can’t force his tense body to move. Instead his hands press up against his chest, willing air to flow through him, willing the panic to subside.

“You’re having a anxiety attack.”

The statement is so obvious that finally Hux is able to manage something, a caricature of a laugh, bitter and unwelcome. The last place he would have ever wanted to have an anxiety attack was here, trapped on some frozen planet with Ren, and yet -

“Major,” again the questioning tone.

“Your ability to sense things astounds me, Lord Ren.”

His eyes are squeezed shut so that it is impossible to see what is happening, but he can hear it, distantly behind the buzzing in his ears. The sound of a latch being let loose, a light gust of air, and a _thump_ as something hits the icy ground between them.

Though he doesn’t need to have his eyes open, not when he hears that voice for the first time without the modulation of the mask. “Let me help calm you down.”

If he hadn’t been so close to breaking before, those words, _that_ tone, would have been enough to set him off.

Instead, it just sunk like a dead weight inside of him, a realization that he had been unwilling to admit, a rejection that had been so clearly masked that Hux could not have dared to believe it true.

“Don’t you dare touch me,” his hisses out, jerking backward so quickly that he falls back into the powdered snow beneath them, the shock of it forces his eyes open, forces him to take in those features that had blurred in his mind over the place two years.

It’s undeniable.

Lord Ren, the creature in a mask that he had despised since the moment he step foot on the Finalizer, and Kylo, were one and the same.

Seeing this before him did not make it any easier. In fact, if anything it makes it ten times worse.

“Get away from me.”

“Stop being stubborn, Major, you need the help.”

It would be all too easy to give in, to let Kylo take the panic away from him, to soothe the worries in his bones, but he cannot give in, never again. Instead he hugs his arms tighter around his torso and does his best to regulate his breathing.

Seven counts, in. Seven counts, out.

“I don’t need you.”

Seven counts,  in. Seven counts, out.

“I never needed you.”

Kylo doesn’t respond.

Hux counts that as a minor blessing.

When he’s not speaking it’s easier to fall back through time, to years before, when the man before him was _Kylo,_ someone that Hux could consider a friend. Now he’s just Ren, Ren who had hidden the familiar face behind a mask for a reason Hux was certain would never be explained.

Even if Ren wanted to, Hux wasn’t certain he would be willing to listen.

“I mourned you,” Hux says, finally when he can breathe without counting. “You let me mourn you.”

“I never wanted that.”

“Well, we don’t always get what we want, now do we?”

\---

“It is my greatest satisfaction to report, Supreme Leader, that Lord Ren and I have come to an agreement as to the planet most suitable for the placement of Starkiller Base. I have already contacted the academy and will be leaving by transport to their location in order to organize building and supply crews for the base, as well as a relocation of our stormtrooper program.”

He stares up at the holographic figure of the Supreme Leader. He’s never had this privilege before, of being able to give his reports in first person, always it is something transmitted, the Supreme Leader’s visage something which only the most select officers of the highest rank have been given the privilege to see.

Having the Supreme Leader request an audience with him was unexpected, enough to make almost all of the unpleasantness with Ren that he had been forced to endure for the past month worth it.

It is hard to doubt the omnipotence of the Supreme Leader when his next question pulls on the very thought lingering in Hux’s mind, “What of my apprentice?”

“Lord Ren believes himself suitable for overseeing the groundbreaking of Starkiller Base,” though exactly what level of construction knowledge Ren possessed was unclear, “He wishes to remain here through the construction of this base.”

Whatever the Supreme Leader thinks of that is unclear, his marred face nearly as impossible to read as Ren’s mask.

“Thank you, General, that will be all.”

“Major,” he corrects, instinctively, before biting his tongue. Correcting the Supreme Leader was likely to get him damned in an instant. He braces himself for the inevitable backlash.

“What was that?”

His voice is less confident this time, “My rank, Supreme Leader, I’m only a Major, not a General.”

“Ah,” a sound that might have been questioning on another’s lips sounds definite coming from the Supreme Leader, “Consider this a promotion, General.”

That one word echoes around Hux’s head, into the very core of his being, _General_ , so familiar and yet brand new.

By the time he regains himself and looks back up towards the Supreme Leader, the holocomm has turned itself off.

Leaving Hux alone with nothing more than the echo of his new title hanging heavy in the air around him.

 _General_ Hux.

 


	5. concordo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay on this chapter, had to rework a few plot points (which made us loose a chapter from the outline actually), but things are all good now and back on schedule!

It is not the first time that he has been on Starkiller base, but it’s the first time that he’s been there since the base actually had become a functional building rather than a collection of transports and troopers moving about.

Hux had been busy, simply put, there was much to do now that a proper base for the First Order had been developed. In addition to remotely overseeing the production of Starkiller base, he had been in charge of the reordering and relocating the stormtrooper program, commissioning more star destroyers in similar make and class to the Finalizer, and dealing with the growing Resistance presence in the galaxy. Tasks which Hux took upon himself eagerly. Each successfully completed step earned him another meeting with the Supreme Leader, or at least a holo of him as no one has ever seen the Supreme Leader in person, an honor that was to be Hux’s alone.

In a matter of months, Hux had become the voice of the Supreme Leader among their ranks, relaying his commands to the rest of the First Order.

He was not simply a _general_ of the First Order now, but _the_ General.

His title was now a privilege that marked him above the rest.

There was something inside of him that accompanied the new shift in status, a desire for more, to be greedy as he never had before. He was the highest ranking General in the First Order, and yet, it never seemed to be enough. All too often his idle thoughts turning to fantasies of increasing his power, of taking things a step further than necessary proving himself so that he could live on as a legend throughout time.

Of course he was always careful to keep those thoughts guarded when meeting with the Supreme Leader, lest his newfound ambition be mistaken for something far more treasonous.

Instead he puts other thoughts to the forefront of his mind, masking those notions with concerns over things as simple as the recent relocation of the stormtrooper program from Arkanis to Starkiller base.

A process which had generally been successful so far. Proof of that was just outside of the observation deck he stood upon, the newest line of troopers eagerly proving themselves as they went through their drills.

“General.”

Hux turns towards Captain Phasma at the sound of his title, “Captain?”

“I have rounds to be doing, if you can keep yourself entertained without me.”

From anyone else the lack of respect for rank would be annoying, but he and Phasma have know each other long enough that he isn’t as bothered by it as he should be. “You’re excused, Captain,” he says, waiting until she leaves the observation deck before turning back to the squadron of troopers.

He will be on Starkiller more often now with the relocation of the troopers, no longer needing to split his time at the Academy overseeing the program that he had inherited.

The program was doing well, in the few months following his father’s inexplicable passing, there had been an unwillingness on his part to take over the program, caught up instead in the plotting of Starkiller base and speculative shipbuilding. The program had slacked in those months, something he would never entirely forgive himself for.

As much as he was crafting a new legacy, building a new place for his family name in the history books, their stormtrooper program would be a Hux project. If he allowed others to take over it was undoubtedly that they would make the same mistakes that had led to the weakened trooper brigades of the Empire.

No, his troopers were better than that, steadfast, strong, and inexplicity loyal to him.

Nothing could make them fall short of that mark.

Usually.

Hux notices the second the trooper’s in front of him begin to falter in their movements. It wasn’t until the door to the observation desk opening behind him that cause the troopers to begin to show small signs of anxiety.

A feeling that while Hux knew far too well, he had been working to rid himself of.

He would not allow himself to show any sort of reaction to the person who had entered the room, would not allow his heart rate to speed up, chest to constrict with anxiety over the conversation that had been silent between them for far too long.

As he stares down at his troopers, Hux breathes in and out in steady counts of seven, fixating on one of the troopers helmets until he could feel the tension from his body slowly slipping away. It is when he lets that fixation slip, that he sees a reflection in the glass before him.

Ren, standing behind him, two paces to the left. His mask is obscuring his features, something Hux finds himself thankful for. It is impossible to see where exactly Ren is looking, yet there is a small voice in the back of his mind that insists Ren is doing the same thing he is, using the glass as a mirror rather than a window.

“How many of these children, did you personally steal from their cradles before bashing their parents heads against the stones,” Ren asks, in a tone that would be near conversationial were it not the first words that they had said to each other in months.

It would be all too easy to fall for the bait, to give Ren the sort of response that he desires, but Hux is better than that. He is not so weak as a falls into Ren’s ploys, not as they once were, where he might play into the jabs in an almost familiar matter.

Instead of dignifying Ren with a response, he simply turns his head slightly, focusing back on the troopers before him with renewed interest.

There is silence on the observation deck for maybe a minute, before Ren speaks again. “I suppose they’re too young to have been on board when you took me. That was only ten years ago. No, these must have been before that. Tell me, how young were you the first time they sent you to steal children away?”

The feeling that begins to grow inside of him is not the anxiety that he has lived most of his life with, but anger, raw and sudden flashing in the back of his mind. It hits him suddenly that he hates Ren, a feeling which had been lingering in him since he first saw the masked figure, but only seemed so clear in that moment, listening with an impassive face as Ren tried to get a rise out of him.

“I suppose this was all you ever wanted then? An army brainwashed to obey your command. You should’ve gone with clones. Though maybe that was too much like home, you know since you’re-”

“Stop it,” Hux hisses, hating himself as the words fall from his lips, unable to stop himself. “I’ve had enough of you.”

When Ren speaks his modulated voice sounds almost sarcastic. “What a shame, General, as I imagine we’ll be seeing much of each other.”

Of course they would be, the world was not lucky enough to give him a longer respite from this insufferable creature.

Whatever Ren says after that falls upon deaf ears, as Hux turns to watching his troopers with renewed interest, forcing himself not to react and knowing after a while that Ren will eventually get bored of the charade.

He cannot help but feel the vaguest hint of relief when Ren’s voice modulator picks up a heavy breathing noise that could almost be considered a frustrated sigh, which is immediately followed by Ren turning around in a flurry for dark robes and leaving Hux to his peace.

\---

Meeting with the Supreme Leader is something Hux is used to by this point. Meeting with the Supreme Leader while Ren stands next to him and reports on his latest successes is _different_ , uncomfortable even. He supposes it is simply their leader's way of being efficient, no need to have two separate meetings when his two highest ranking officials were on the same planet. The Supreme Leader does not make decisions based on Hux’s comfort level. If nothing else on a structural level he can appreciate the efficiency of meeting like this.

Though technically, the Knights of Ren weren’t even in the First Order command chain, but rather the Supreme Leader’s lapdogs with their own personal chain of command.

“I was hoping we could speak,” Ren says, the second the Supreme Leader’s holo disappears.

He had a feeling that this was coming, it had been coming for months, ever since they decided on this planet for the development of Starkiller base, but Hux had been lucky before. He had been busy with matters at the academy, or onboard the Finalizer. The rare times he had to go down to the planet that Ren had lain claim to, Hux had been pleasantly pleased to find him off base or too busy to bring up conversations that Hux would very much like to avoid.

Now though, there was nothing.

Hux was stationed on Starkiller permanently to oversee the final preparations of the base and the relocation of the trooper program, and while Ren had a mission from the Supreme Leader, Hux could already sense it wouldn’t keep him away nearly as much as he had hoped.

Avoiding this conversation seeming impossible, and yet, Hux could not help but try.

“If you would like to take a trooper squadron with you on your mission to find your former master, it can easily be arranged, there are transports which-”

“Not about that,” Ren cuts him off. “About us.”

“Us,” Hux repeats the word, not bothering to hide his disdain. “We are equals, who work together under the command of the Supreme Leader for the benefit of the First Order. Our working relationship can remain as it is - distant, unhostile, efficient - as long as our objectives are completed a discussion of any matter is unnecessary.”

Ren had removed his mask for the meeting with the Supreme Leader, so Hux can clearly see his words register like a slap across Ren’s features. Before Ren’s expression shifts to something like anger.

His voice is low as he says, “General,” but Hux cuts him off before he can finish that thought.

“If you’ll excuse me, Ren, I have affairs to attend to,” he says quickly, and without giving Ren a chance to reply, stalking down the walkway.

\---

He peers over the maintenance reports.

A training center wall blasted to ruins, or at least bearing what looked like blaster marks from the holos that they’d sent him, Hux had yet to investigate the area himself. It was going to set completion of other parts of the base back as the necessary repairs were made, and that wasn’t even counting the financial aspect.

“This was a blaster malfunction, Lieutenant Mitaka,” Hux reads off from the report with a skeptical hint to his voice.

The Lieutenant refuses to make eye contact with him, which is an answer in itself.

He sets the datapad down on his desk, leveling Mitaka a practiced look. One that was stern yet scrutinizing, a look that he had often found on his father’s face as a boy, a look that did the trick now cracking the Lieutenant in less than a second.

“Not exactly, sir.”

“Not exactly?”

“That was what Captain Phasma told us to write in the reports, but-”

He holds up a hand to silence the Lieutenant, watching instantly as his lips fall closed, his form snapping to attention. Though it is the eyes that always give people away, the eyes that dart nervously around the room.

“Be careful, Lieutenant, before you go accusing one of my most trusted Captains of treason.”

Mitaka shifts slightly before him, eyes downcast finally in a look akin to defeat. “It’s not that, sir.”

“I’m waiting.”

He doesn’t even make a full seven count in his head before Mitaka cracks. “It’s Lord Ren, sir. He damages the equipment with his blade, I thought I saw it once, but I turned quickly before… Apparently some trooper unit got in his way one time and not even the meddroids could put the pieces back together, it’s all just rumors, sir.”

“Underneath every rumor lies the truth.”

“Sir?”

Hux pinches the bridge of his nose.

There was more he wanted to ask.

How frequently do these incidents occurred? What could have incited such a reaction from Ren? Was it a purposeful action meant to provoke Hux or simply a release of energy that could not be misdirected through his meditations?

Though he knew with certainty that the rattled Lieutenant in front of him would have no further answers. With a wave of his hand he dismisses the Lieutenant, who all too quickly rushes from Hux’s office. It is only once the door slips shut that he picks up his datapad and shoots a message off to Phasma.

He would need more information before he confronted Ren over whatever this was. Even then, armed with the most information possible, he was certain than any conversation about this would be painful. What bothered him most of all was not the credits it would cost to repair the equipment or how this would set back the finishing of Starkiller based, but rather that Ren would need to resort to such a manner to realize his frustrations?

Was Ren not the same man who had once lectured Hux about the need to control his own anxieties? Who offered lessons in mediation with a teasing grin?

No, that had been _Kylo,_ or even once _Ben_.

Ren was a whole new challenge for Hux.

\---

After listening to two hours of Ren’s past _incidents_ from Phasma, and going over various reports that had been purposely filed incorrectly to hide these things from him. All Hux really wanted to do was go to his quarters, pour himself a drink of that brandy he kept stashed away, and forget he had ever heard about any of this.

Those plans are dashed the second he steps into his room and realizes that Ren is settled upon his couch, reclined back against the dark cushions like he had done so many times before he had become _Ren_. Though this time his features are hidden by his mask as he works on his datapad reminding Hux all too clearly who he is dealing with.

“I would tell you to leave,” Hux says, as he removes his greatcoat from his shoulders, “But I am certain you will refuse to do so until you make your point, so please do it quickly.”

“I told you before that I wished to confer.”

“Ah yes, so now you have come to force it upon me,” Hux replies dryly.

“You’ve been avoiding me,” Ren moves from his relaxed position as he says this, standing up now so that they are nearly eye to eye, or would be were it not for the mask obscuring his face.

“Are you in the habit of stating the obvious?”

“You’re angry,” Ren says, sounding almost surprised by this realization.

“Apparently you are,” Hux mutters sarcastically, choosing to ignore Ren’s words.

That is until he repeats them, this time in the form of a confused question, “You’re angry at me?” As if he can scarcely believe that that could be possible. Was Ren really unable to sense the hatred that burned brightly inside of him? How every time he looked at that mask it flared up again, forcing him to clench his hands instead of moving forward as to strike?

“Of course, I’m angry. You force your into my quarters without invitation, you purposely prod me the first moment we see each other, and I have recently been informed that you take to destroying various parts of _my_ base whenever you find yourself bored. So yes, Ren, I am _angry_.”

Ren seems to dismiss all of his complaints, waving them off with a idle movement of his wrist. “It goes deeper than that, I can sense it. You are annoyed with this recent development, but this anger is different.”

He hates him, remembering this gives Hux another fresh burst of ange. Enough to resist rising to the bait and instead simply shooting a displeased look in Ren’s direction, “Kriff off, Ren.”

“No.”

No.

The word echoes in his head, until all he wants to do is hit something, to hit Ren, to bash that stupid mask in so that it can’t be worn again.

Clearly Ren has not yet left Hux’s mind, because as soon as the thought of Ren unmasked flits through his mind, Ren is moving his hands to the clasp of his mask and undoing it.

Seeing him unmasked now is different from last time.

For one, he is not having an anxiety attack in the middle of a frozen wasteland.

Also, he fully knows what waits between that mask, the features that were distorted from his view on a daily basis, the features he had once found comfort or desire in, but now only found disgust.

It was harder to hate Ren with his mask off, but somehow Hux manages.

“Why is it so hard for you to understand that I don’t want you here?”

Watching Ren’s face, the second where his steadfast resolve seems to falter and look almost hurt, should feel like an accomplishment, but it is nothing of the sort.

“I missed you,” Ren says, when he regains himself, the words soft and barely there between them.

“I didn’t,” Hux says.

It is the truth.

Since he discovered who Ren really was Hux had felt nothing but anger for the man behind the mask, a sense akin to betrayal had lingered within him at first which gave way to fury and to resentment. This anger gave him new motivation, a need to prove himself, to establish himself as being above _Lord_ Ren.

He supposes perhaps he ought to thank Ren, for finally instilling ambition within him.

Hux glares at Ren with all he can manage, but it met with a much softer gaze in return.

“You did,” Ren insists, “I had felt it, before.”

“When was that? Back when you were pretending to be dead,” Hux snaps.

“I was never pretending to be dead. I have been, who I always was, the fact that you were unable to recognize this is no fault of mine.”

For a second Hux can barely believe what he is hearing. As if Ren is honestly insisting that Hux not knowing who had been behind the mask was his own fault, that he was somehow supposed to determine, through a series of layers and a mask that not only hid his features but modulated his voice, that Kylo was Lord Ren. The notion is so preposterous that Hux could almost think it to be a joke, were it not for the serious look on Ren’s face.

“Get out.” The words are barely audible the first time he says them, though the second time they come out much louder. “Get out!”

Even when Ren finally gives in, slipping his mask back on, before complying with Hux’s demands, it still does not feel like anything close to a victory. Why is it that this man has the ability to render him this way? Unable to skillfully articulate against him, barely able to reign in the surge of emotions that threaten to spill forth from him.

Seeing Ren’s face - seeing _Kylo_ ’s face, did not offer him the closure he had hoped it would - instead his nights are haunted by that face, appearing in his dream as though to mock him time and time again.

\---

Hux gets another report, pushed into his hands by a frantic looking Lieutenant, Sector Four’s repairs were set back once again as the half repaired wall was damaged in the same manner that it had originally been.

Clean cuts of a saber, for no good reason.

By time Phasma finishes her rounds and ends up in his office, Hux has already poured himself a generous helping of brandy.

“I’m honestly considering just leaving the sector unfinished if he is so keen on constantly laying ruin to it.”

“You could talk to him,” Phasma suggests, her core accent making her words sound mocking.

He glares at her in return, though her chrome armor simply reflects his expression back at him in a distorted view, diminishing its strength.

“Talking to Ren is the last thing I want to do,” Hux insists, “Though perhaps you could-”

“I enjoy my life far too much for that, General,” she boldly cuts him off.

Hux sighs. “I had feared as much.”

\---

He’s been on base two weeks now and the amount of times that Ren has appeared in his quarters or office without invitation is almost too many to count. Such that now all Hux does is let out an annoyed sigh, as he enters his quarters to find the lights at ten percent and a figure settled on the floor beside his desk.

It takes him a moment to realize that Ren is meditating.

His mask settled on Hux’s desk, as he kneels in position, head bowed forward slightly. The anger and annoyance that normally rushes to the forefront of Hux’s mind diminishes at the sight of Ren mediating, as if his rooms have been basked in a calming air. A part of him knows that it is side effect of the mediation, he has felt the sensation before back when Ren was Kylo and Hux welcomed him into his room.

As much as he would like to pull Ren out of his mediation, to send him on his way, Hux’s hand hesitates just over his shoulder.

Instead, he picks up a datapad from his desk, determined to at least get some of his reports done while he waited for Ren to emerge from his mediation. It’s almost humorous that the first report on his datapad is one alerting him that another control panel had been destroyed in a lightsaber fueled flurry earlier in the day, as he sends off the repair requests his eyes flicker upwards over the top of the screen to where Ren is still sitting peacefully in his mediation.

If only he could always stay like that.

If only things could always be this easy.

When three hours have passed with no movement from Ren, Hux is willing to write him off. He takes a shower, changes into his nightclothes and goes through his evening routine without so much as a glance cast in Ren’s direction.

Sleeping with Ren still in his quarters in an uncomfortable thought, but there is a room between them, and he desperately needs his rest. The past day had been a struggle, it seemed that a million issues with the final stages of the bases construction had appeared as soon as Hux arrived on base, a fact which now left him with endless paperwork and arrangements to be made. Something that he had been stressing over for most of the day, but now sat like a minor annoyance at the back of his mind.

He settles amongst his sheets, expecting to stay awake from his uneasy at his proximity to the Knight of Ren, but instead finds exhaustion catching up with him far too easily.

 

_There’s a rumble of engines beneath his feet, a sound that he’s known almost as long as he’s been alive. Each noise intimately familiar to him that he could detect even the slightest change in the ship's condition -_

_He knows in an instant something is wrong, a loud screeching noise, like when his uncle_ \- no that can’t be, he’s never had an uncle- _leaves the speeder’s parking brake on. His hands come up to cover his ears, the sound increases -_

_Someone comes rushing out from the cockpit, a woman that looks far too familiar, his mind supplies the word ‘mother’ -_

_Her braids are loose, hair hanging down around her face, brushing against the loose dress she wears to hide her growing stomach. She looks relaxed. They did not expect company for days. A woman of Alderaan does not let her hair down except in the company of family, and he’s -_

_She’s saying something, offering instructions, as he wedges himself into a hidden panel between the walls -_

_There’s another who would know what to do, but he’s busy flying the ship, instead -_

_He asks a question, words that sound almost like gibberish, and for a second the woman looks just as confused, before she curls her lips up slightly saying something about asking the man, the ‘father’ what is to be done. She doesn’t move as she does this, does not shout, simply closes her eyes -_

_He can feel it washing over him, an awareness that he is not alone, a sense in the back of his mind the presence of the people he calls ‘family’ -_

_His hands move against the controls, the shrill noise cuts off and he -_

 

Hux is jolted out of the strange dream and back into the reality at someone sliding into bed beside him. _Ren_ , his senses register belatedly, though rather than making a move to expel Ren from the bed he speaks up in a sleep heavy voice.

“I hope you’re not expecting any sort of thanks.”

Ren lies stiffly on the other side of the bed, creating a gulf of space between their bodies. His breathing is relaxed but steady, the only sound in the room for so long that Hux nearly thinks he has fallen asleep already, but then he hears it, soft like a whisper.

“Let me teach you how to mediate in the morning.”

“I have no interest in that,” Hux says dismissively. “I manage just fine.”

This time he gets a snort in reply. “I could feel your anxiety across the base, you keep burying what you’re feeling down and it finds _me_. You have no idea how frustrating it is to feel your emotions secondhand being unable to stop them, simply because _you_ are too stubborn to simply let me help.”

Ren is hiding something from him. He’s barely awake now, but he can sense it.

Truth be told, it isn’t the first time Hux had wondered about these sorts of things - he had heard tales of Force sensitives being able to form bonds with each other, to sense thoughts or emotions over long distances, to project what they were feeling towards the other in times of need. Though most of those stories were the stuff of legends, the sort of that Hux certainly refused to believe in, even when the evidence was right before him.

He had felt emotions that were not his own before. He had dreamed of places and moments that felt so lifelike but were not of his own memory. Ren’s mediation could bring him calm, just as easily as Ren could apparently sense his every thought. If some connection existed then it certainly did not go evenly both ways.

“I’m not like you,” Hux says, “I don’t have mystical powers.”

He feels a flash of annoyance at his own words, an emotion that is not his own, though that emotion disappears as soon as it had arrived. “Bonds can be formed as long as one of those in question is sensitive to the Force.”

“Is that what this is then?”

Ren’s silence stretches, the bed shifts ever so slightly, as the space between them is crossed. “I am not sure. I have only ever seen one bond of a similar nature, and theirs was _different_.”

Hux knows insistently about that bond. He thinks of the dream he had just escaped from, an almost idyllic childhood, a starship in desperate need of repairs and a certainty that had held in the woman’s voice as she’d spoken.

Ren’s parents.

He knows better than to voice that realization.

Instead Hux asks, “How?”

“I had not realized it at first, everything had been too sudden and too painful, I was not quite myself at the time,” Ren admits, “But you were the first face I saw, after all that destruction, after the temple. My mind latched onto the first potential ally, forming the bond without me having even realized it was happening. When we met again, I was intimately aware of you at all times, but I thought this had to do with my attraction not… It was only once I was training with Snoke that this bond was fully brought to my attention.”

He has no clue what to do with this information, it is all so sudden, all too much for him to deal with while half asleep.

Hux shifts away from Ren ever so slightly, “Can it be broken?”

Ren’s voice carries a note of hurt when he responds, “If you wish, though it is not an easy or pleasant process.”

He should have expected as much.

“It doesn’t have to happen right this instant,” Hux replies. “In a few days time, perhaps, when our schedules have cleared.”

Something like sorrow buries itself inside Hux’s chest, but he can no longer tell if the emotion is his own. Ren shifts away from him, but makes no move to leave the bed. Instead he steadies his breathing out into a facsimile of sleep, one that does not fool Hux in the slightest. He lets him be though, Ren is moping, and a part of Hux that doesn’t want to admit it understands why.

“I still hate you,” Hux says, he says more for his own benefit than anything else.

Ren’s voice somehow seems smaller when he replies, “I know.”

Hux falls into dreamless sleep after that.

When he awakes, Ren is nowhere to be found, and the headache that had been relieved from him the night before is back full force pressing against his head. For everything has a cost in the end.

\---

It is not as though Hux intentionally avoids Ren after that, it is just that avoiding him becomes easier than dealing with the matter.

When Ren doesn’t appear in his quarters the next night to bother him, Hux counts it as a blessing. The idea that he could possibly seek him out, transverse across the space and force him into a confrontation of his own is so absurd that Hux dismisses it immediately.

There is also a part of him, a small part that Hux likes to pretend does not exist, that wonders if what Ren had told him was truly a bad thing. Yes, it meant that Ren was in his head far more often than Hux was comfortable with, and it gave him an explanation for the strange dreams he had been having, but otherwise there was no downsides to their situation that he could see. As for the benefits - those had yet to be entirely explored.

Another part of him dismissed this whole thing as nonsense, something Ren suggested in the dead of night to wedge itself into his brain and cause him a whole new slew of anxiety in some sadistic manner of his. But even as Hux had the thought he dismissed it, even Ren could not be that cruel.

Thankfully he was saved from any sort of confrontation for another week as Ren had gone off to chase a lead for his latest mission from the Supreme Leader.

If the base feels just a little bit colder without Ren on it, Hux tries not to dwell on the feeling.

\---

He knows Ren is back the second he turns a quarter to see stormtroopers _scurrying_ in the opposite direction as though their very lives depend on it. Truth be told, they might.

Phasma had warned in her reports that anyone who goes near Ren during his _fits of rage_ had a habit of losing limbs, which should have been enough to convince Hux to turn around and find a different path to his destination, just as the troopers had done, but his feet carried him onward without any will to stop.

Coming across the scene was different from hearing about it.

There’s an angry feeling pulsing through him. Fury that Ren would damage part of their - _his_ \- base for no good reason, but also a lingering feeling of frustration over dead ends and missing maps and good for nothing Knights -

“You’re projecting,” Hux says, words a vicious snap across the air, and Ren’s blade hovers mid strike.

He does not disengage the saber as he turns around, the masked face fixing Hux an indecipherable look. It’s modulator picking up the heavy sound of frustrated breathing, a modulated rasp that raked against Hux’s brain.

“General, to what do I owe the pleasure,” Ren speaks slowly.

He tells himself that it is through much practice of listening to the masked voice that Hux finds himself able to pick up to exact tone and meaning behind Ren’s words. Reminding himself that it has nothing to do with any sort of bond between them.

The mask picks up a noise that Hux immediately identifies as a dismissive snort.

“I would tell you to get out of my mind, but I assume that that is a moot point.”

“You assume correctly,” Ren replies.

He brings his hand up to pinch at the bridge of his nose where he feels a headache already threatening to come on. Closing his eyes does a bit to relieve the growing pressure, but it’s counteracted by the sound of Ren’s still heavy breathing through the mask which only serves to make the headache more intense.

“Take it off,” Hux says. He doesn’t need to say what exactly _it_ is, Ren understands him far too well.

“We’re in public,” Ren objects.

The mask stays in place, but at least he disengages his blade, the sound of it shutting off reluctantly causes Hux to reopen his eyes.

“I’m not having this discussion with you in that stupid thing.”

“I thought, General, that you would prefer not to have this discussion at all.”

This time when a wave of anger washes over him, Hux gives into it, hating both himself and Ren as he does so.

“Why are you like this,” he asks, his voice louder and far more shrill than he would normally like. “Every little thing that inconveniences you doesn’t need to blow up into a big ordeal. So your mission wasn’t a success, not every mission is, not everything will be handed to you upon a silver platter. Sometimes you have to struggle and push yourself to succeed. A lesson I like to think I had learned from someone you might have once been. Now though,” he cannot hide the disgust in his voice. “Just learn to kriffing control yourself, Ren, if not for your own sake then for everyone else’s.”

“Curious sentiment coming from you, General.”

Ren’s words are barbed, meant to incite more anger, to rub against Hux’s own insecurities.

“I may have a kriffing anxiety disorder, but I am nothing like you,” Hux snaps. “You behave like a child who has had his favorite toy stolen away. Grow up, Ren.”

“Sometimes I get so frustrated I cannot help it,” Ren says, they’re still fighting words, but they have lost a bit of their fire. “Would you rather I took it out on the men who had disappointed me instead of your precious walls?”

“I’d rather you took it out on no one at all.”

Ren doesn’t say anything, but Hux can imagine the expression behind the mask well enough, something like disbelief maybe a dismissal even.

“Meditate, Ren, or have you forgotten how.”

For a second, Hux thinks that he might have pushed too far. Ren silence stretches about the space between them for what feels like an infinity before something cracks. It starts off slow, the voice modulator of his mask, unsure what to do with the sound. A harsh breathing noise that takes Hux a second to identify before it hits him suddenly - a _laugh_.

Ren is laughing.

\---

All it takes is one minor correction, “ _Lord_ Ren,” said in that condescending voice for Hux to finally lose the last hint of his perfectly put together resolve.

He stares hard across the meeting room table at Ren’s masked face, the mocking tone unable to have been missed even by the modulator.

The second he says, “Why don’t we post-pone the rest of this meeting until tomorrow,” the other officers gathered around the table nearly trip over each other in their desperate need to leave the room, but Ren… Ren just stands there same as before, his features unreadable.

When the door shuts on the last of them, and Hux says, “Take off the damn mask,” this time Ren does not resist him. Though he makes a great show of it, before his fingers move to the clasp releasing it and letting the mask clatter onto the meeting room table.

He crosses the meeting room in a few easy strides, and when Ren turns to meet him, Hux pushes against him. His arm bracing against Ren’s chest as he forces him against the room’s durasteel walls.

“Do you exist purely to aggravate me?”

“Not purely,” Ren insists, his lips curling into a mocking smile.

“This is not a game, Ren. This is a serious meeting about the development of a weapon that could reshape the entire galaxy. I will not let you foil its development and post-pone our progress simply because you feel like being a pest on any particular day.”

“I missed you,” Ren says, words that Hux has heard before, words that are no easier to deal with now.

“Perhaps you should have thought that through before-”

However he had meant to finish that sentence is silenced as Ren crosses the small gap of space between them to press their lips together. He’s still angry, a feeling that threatens to consume him, but Ren is warm against him and it has been far too long, too long since he has even took himself in hand to the image of the man that is just before him, ready and willing.

Surely he can indulge himself every once in awhile.

Surely he deserves this hint of pleasure.

Hux eases his mouth away from Ren, pushing him back against the wall roughly once more. The noise Ren lets out when his back contacts the wall again is a fine mix of pleasure and pain, though when Hux looks up to his eyes he sees nothing but pure want in them.

“This changes nothing,” Hux says sharply.

When Ren nods his head indicating his acquiesce to this point, Hux drops to his knees in on fluid movement. First goes Ren’s belt, easily removed. The coat and upper tunic that Ren wears are pushed aside greedily by his own hands, as Hux moves on to pushing his pants down freeing the cock that strains against its cloth.

There’s a feeling that washes over him for a moment, disbelief mixed with pleasure, it is not his own feelings, but one projected towards him. It gives Hux the last push that he needs.

He would bend Ren over the meeting room table had he the right supplies. Instead, he wraps his hand around the cock in front of him, curling his fingers to give Ren the pressure he so clearly desires. It takes only a moment before Ren is bucking up into his fingers, muttering obscenities, words like “More,” and “Please,” mixed in between them.

“Tell me, Ren, do you truly deserve this?”

Another moan falls from the lips of the man above him. “I - General,” but he cannot finish the sentence.

Lord Ren finally at a loss for words, Hux feels a rush of power knowing that was the one to have brought him to this state.

“Look at me,” Hux commands, and Ren does. Dragging his dark eyes downwards, it is only then that he moves forward. Maintaining eye contact with Ren, Hux wraps his lips around him.

From the desperate noises Ren makes above him, Hux cannot help but wonder if this is the first time Ren has ever had a man on his knees before him. Certainly he had confessed before that Hux the first time a man had even taken him, but there had been time between then and now. To think that Ren might have been with no one else during that time was -

“You,” Ren answers his unspoken question, his voice breaking over the syllable, “Only you, only ever you.”

 _Good_ , he thinks, certain that Ren can hear him. Before he swallows around Ren’s cock, drawing him in deeper.

Whatever last shred of composure Ren had been holding onto seems to flee him in that moment. His hips bucking up into Hux’s mouth. It takes barely any effort for Hux to relax his throat and offer Ren what he so clearly needs.

It feels good, the pressure of Ren heavy in his mouth as he moves to bring himself to pleasure.

Hux brings one of his hands down, to press his palm against the growing bulge in his pants. The pressure is too much and too sudden. It has been far too long since he has been able to seek his own pleasure and now with Ren above him, it is all too easy to bring himself off with nothing more than a few touches.

He spends himself in his pants before Ren finishes, a thought that would have colored his cheeks with shame in other circumstances, but here only incides Hux to take control once more of their situation.

Hux brings his hands up to hold Ren’s hips steady, stopping him from pressing forward anymore. A frustrated noise spills from Ren’s lips, when he looks up Ren’s gaze does not meet him. At some point he had tipped his head back against the wall, the sight causes Hux to slow down.

When Hux pulls back fully off of him Ren sounds almost pained, “You can’t just leave me like this.”

“I have no intention of doing that,” Hux assures him, his voice hoarse, “Though I believe I gave you an order that you’ve forgotten.”

It takes Ren a moment to put two and two together, and when he does he tips his head forward. An expression that is irritation mixed with pleasure lingers on his features, dark waves of hair framing his face.

“Now ask nicely.”

“Kriff you.”

He makes a move to rock back off of his knees, a half hearted attempt to stand up. Ren could keep him down here with the Force if he really wanted to, could use those powers to make Hux take his cock yet again. The thought almost makes Hux want to push it that far.

There will be another time for that though.

Today is about control, about reminding Ren where they stand on this ship in relation to each other, and for that part he simply waits him out.

Waits until Ren cannot take it anymore, one weak, “Please, Hux,” falling from his lips unselfishly.

It is then that he finishes what he had started. He puts his mouth back on Ren’s cock, moving with a familiar rhythm. He slips one hand from Ren’s waist, to the base of his cock, stroking the part that he cannot easily swallow.

Ren does not last much longer than that, three more weak thrusts of his hips before he is coming down Hux’s throat. He maintains their eye contact through it, watching as Ren’s face scrunches up as he comes.

He is not a beautiful creature, not divine in his moment of release, but knowing that he is the only one to have ever witnessed Ren is such a state sends a rush of possessiveness through Hux that he cannot contain.

Hux wipes at his mouth with the back of his hand, as he rises from his kneeling position. The floor of the conference room is not kind of his knees, but Hux is not entirely unaccustomed to the position.

He adjusts his uniform to the best of his abilities, putting himself in order so that no one will suspect what went on in this room.

Ren is less readily able to do so. Hux watches as his hands shake ever so slightly as he tugs his pants back up over his now spent cock.

When Ren catches his gaze he speaks eagerly, “Should I take care of you now, General?”

“I don’t make a habit of fucking in conference rooms,” Hux says, as though he had not just been on his knees before Ren.

The Knight blinks a similar sentiment surely in his mind. “Back in your quarters then, I could-”

“There’s no need,” Hux says quickly, far too quickly, but lingering here in a room that smells like sex and Ren is all too much. He reminds himself again that this meant nothing, just a way to calm Ren down from whatever had gotten him so up in arms and difficult to deal with. “Now, if you will excuse me, I have important matters to deal with. I assume you can put yourself together.”

When Ren nods weakly, Hux turns away from him, and leaves the conference room without a second glance backwards.

\---

“I am disappointed, Lord Ren.”

Hux feels not for the first time that he should find a way to excuse himself from this meeting.

When he had received the summons from the Supreme Leader for a meeting, Hux hadn’t been surprised in the slightest to see Ren arriving as well. Meeting with Snoke together was no longer an uncommon occurrence, however, since the last time he’d seen Ren had been when he left the thoroughly debauched Knight behind in a meeting room, seeing him again had caused an initial bout of awkwardness. And longing, wishing for a second that he had expected Ren’s offer, let the man before him return the favor as eagerly as he had offered.

Now though that awkwardness had turned into something else, a need to be anywhere but in this meeting room. Snoke had wanted an update on the weapon’s preparation, which Hux had readily offered, but then the Supreme Leader had turned his attentions to his apprentice.

The tension in the room was so thick that Hux could feel it pressing up against him, nearly suffocating, each word spoken through the Supreme Leader’s holo seeming to steal more and more of the air away.

“Was I wrong to give you this most honored position?”

Ren’s voice lacks its usual fire, “No, my master, I-”

“Silence.”

Hux digs his fingers into the palm of his hands, his anxiety increasing drastically for the first time in months, because of words that are not even directed at him.

“Is it that, you don’t even want your old master dead. That must by you deliberately fail and procrastinate on this basic task. Are you not stronger than Luke Skywalker?”

The name sends a jolt through Hux. Surprise, he supposes that must be the emotion he is feeling, disbelief that a man out of legends could truly still exist. Hux had never bothered to ask who Ren had trained under before, who had run the temple that a young Ren had desecrated, and he supposes that knowing it nows changes nothing.

The Supreme Leader is still talking to Ren, but their words are falling on deaf ears, Hux unable to process whatever else is said in an attempt to stir Ren into action, not with this new realization dropped on him.

In fact, he barely notices when the Supreme Leader finishes, only remembering to give a respectful farewell quickly before his holo disappears.

For a moment there is nothing in the hall except the sound of Ren’s breathing through the heavily modulated mask, and the thumping of Hux’s heart against his rib cage.

He breaks the silence hesitantly, the name, “Ren,” carrying such a weight as it rolls off of his lips.

But the Knight doesn’t seem to hear anything he is saying.

\---

_He kneels against the ground, head cast forward, his dark hair unbound for once falling about the sides of his face. He means to brush his hair back, a quick glance upwards shows everyone else in position nobody looking his way, it would only take a second -_

_He’s supposed to be meditation, letting his emotions go, finding his salvation within the Force but he -_

_There’s a soft voice chiding him, insisting that he’ll never learn. His cheeks flush against his control, ducking his head once more -_

_A title rolls off his lips accompanied with an apology, familiar and true. ‘Master’, he hates the word, resents that the man who had once watched over him as a babe is now -_

_He looks up against his better judgement, against the rules set out for meditation, up into a face with features that remind him of his mother’s and then he -_

He’s seen that face before.

_Flashes of the future, the foresight that he’d worked so hard to keep hidden, crashing over him full force. He calls out for someone, for his ‘master’ to help ground him, but it's too late, everything is slipping away -_

_Blood stained palms -_

_Bodies, with open lifeless eyes, littering the ground -_

_Charred remains, metal twisted by the fires -_

_A flash of a red saber coming down in the rain -_

_Frozen ground, rippling with Force energy -_

_Auburn hair against sterile white bedsheets -_

_Pain rippling across his side, stitches already torn from his skin -_

 

Waking up from a dream that is not his own is not as surprising as it should be anymore. Nor is the swirl of emotions that follow the dream - anger, resentment, embarrassment - underneath it all he finds his own confusion, a minor footnote of what he feels.

“Damn Ren,” he says, to the empty air, already pushing himself up out of bed. His chrono says that it's still the middle of his sleep cycle, but there will be no more sleep after this.

No - it was time he did something that he had been avoiding for far too long.

Knowing that once they did this he would be free of these strange dreams, free of secondhand emotions, and most importantly free of Ren’s prying - as enough to stir him into motion even though exhaustion is heavy on his limbs.

He dresses quickly, his uniform more rumpled than he would like it, but as it was unlikely that too many people would see him on his trek between his rooms and Ren’s, Hux tries not to linger on lines of his uniform. Instead he hurries through the motions, knowing that each second merely prologues the headache.

The door to Ren’s room slides open the second he is outside of it, though unlike times before Ren makes no effort to lighten the room beyond it’s complete darkness. Hux quickly tries to focus on the layout of the room, before the door slides shut behind him, sealing him in.

He makes through the main room with ease, though once he is in the bedroom, it is more difficult to manage. As his knee bumps against the edge of Ren’s desk, a small mocking noise that is almost a laugh comes from somewhere else in the room.

Hux refuses to make a fool of himself by stumbling over to where Ren must still be in bed, and instead leans against the newly located desk.

“You know why I am here,” Hux says without any preamble.

Ren’s “Yes,” comes quickly enough.

“I want it broken, whatever you did to me, this _bond_ that you forced upon me-” Ren snorts at his choice of words, but Hux continues on. “End it, Ren.”

“What if I say no,” Ren asks, his voice a light thing, carried through the darkness to Hux.

He wishes his eyes would adjust to the lack of light in Ren’s room, so he could make out more than blurred edges of figures. So that he could aim his glare in the right direction. Instead, he simply presses his hand roughly against the edge of Ren’s desk and glares in what he believes is the general direction of Ren.

How Ren can manage to move about his rooms with the light at zero percent is beyond Hux’s understanding, it likely has something to do with the Force.

“I am _tired,_ Ren,” Hux says, the words more of an admittance than he would have liked.

“Perhaps, General, you need to find better ways to wind down.”

He does not miss the lewd undertone to Ren’s words. It is impossible to miss them.

“I despise you. I have always -”

“Don’t bother lying to me,” Ren cuts him off sharply. Though Hux cannot see it, he can hear clearly as Ren rises from his bed, the heavy steps as he crosses the space between them. “You have cared for me, a part of you still does.”

He cannot fight the truth in those words, no matter how much he wants to. When he feels Ren’s hands hover just over his face, Hux steps forward, letting Ren’s fingertips rest against the sides of his face.

It is an invitation, given without a second though. An invitation that Ren takes all too eagerly.

He has felt Ren in the back of his mind before. Some times he is an uncomfortable pressure like a headache that is just beginning to build. Other times he is a fuzzy feeling that numbs the senses as if Hux has had one too many drinks.

This is different, sharper, more intimate, every nerve on his body responding to Ren’s presence in his mind.

He is hit with an awareness that if he tried to fight Ren off now it would hurt, unbearably so, that this invasion could tear his mind to pieces.

When Ren’s fingers finally leave his face, he feels lighter, warmer, instinctively leaning towards Ren. He knows what Ren saw - the dream that had woken him and made him come to this room, but also all of his most intimate thoughts about the Knight before him, all of his desperate longings, his personal tragedies, all the things he could never find it in himself to admit.

There are lips on his suddenly, though Hux can not tell which one of them moved first, and to be honest it does not matter, because they are together now as they should have been months ago, as they had always been meant to be.

Destiny, it was a word Hux scoffed at the notion of, but Ren believed in it, believed that _this_ was his destiny. That they were fated in a way, bonded together since that day Hux took him away from the ruined temple.

Hux knows this, knows it as if the words were whispered into his ear.

When they pull back, there is barely any distance between them, Hux feels each breath Ren takes against his lips.

It is there that he says the words Ren already knows, the words Ren must have felt inside of him, but that Hux had been too unwilling to speak of. In the darkness that threatens to swallow him whole, he whispers the words against Ren’s lips, “I missed you too.”

 


	6. evigilatio

“We’re going to be late,” Hux says, pointedly, he moves to roll away from Ren, only to be stopped by an unnaturally strong grip against his hips, pushing him back into the bed sheets. “The Supreme Leader requested this meeting, we cannot simply delay because you wish to remain in bed.”

“Snoke will not mind the delay,” Ren insists.

Hux snorts, not bothering to hide the sarcasm in his voice. “Oh yes, does the Force tell you that? Can you foresee it?”

Ren doesn’t answer right away, instead his fingers rub circles into the curve of Hux’s bare hips, fingers feather soft as they skate downward. Hux can feel Ren’s breath, the way his lips ghost over his exposed flesh. It would be so easy to give in, to let Ren take whatever he wants, to tilt his hips upwards in an invitation.

“No,” Ren says, his lips brushing against the head of Hux’s rapidly hardening cock as he says the words, “But I can foresee this,” and with that he moves forward to take Hux into his mouth.

It is hard to argue with that, and frankly Hux couldn’t find it in himself to push Ren away. Not when he looks so beautiful like this, his eyes shut, his dark eyelashes brushing against his cheeks which are colored by the slightest of blushes, his lips stretched wide around Hux’s cock.

An invisible pressure pushes Hux forward, forcing him to tangle his hands in Ren’s hair. When Hux tugs on the soft strands between his fingers, Ren lets out an appreciative moan.

One that Hux himself echoes a moment later as Ren swallows around him. The sensation is all too much, a tight wet heat that has Hux tilting his hips upwards off the bed, all too desperate for more.

It’s Ren’s hands on his hips that stop him, pushing Hux back onto the mattress, as Ren slips his mouth off his cock.

“Now, now, General, don’t make me force you to stay still,” Ren teases, his voice calming to something sweet before he speaks again, “Let me take care of you.”

Hux almost hates how desperate his voice sounds, when he replies, “Please.”

\---

It seems inappropriate to tell Ren that he told him so, though Hux cannot help the words from slipping to the forefront of his mind as the Supreme Leader makes clear his displeasure at their rescheduled meeting.

“My apologies, Supreme Leader,” Hux says, when Ren seems incapable of saying _anything_ to cover for them. “There were unexpected complications that required our immediate attention on base.”

For a second he swears that the unwavering holographic gaze of the Supreme Leader can see through his lie all too easily.

Perhaps he can, Hux does not pretend to entirely understand the Force.

He breathes a sigh of relief when the gaze shifts away from him to where Ren stands masked to his left.

“Tell me, Lord Ren, what of this map you located?”

\---

He imagines it some nights, when there’s no one but Ren to sense his treasonous thoughts.

These usually come following occasions when their meetings with the Supreme Leader have gone poorly. It is in those moments that he’ll create a fantasy.

There’s a seed of something that a young Hux would have never considered, but has managed to grow inside of him, into a longing to advance further in rank, to be in control of not only his life but the world. On the nights where his dreams are his own, he will imagine a world where they are at the helm, where there is no _Supreme Leader_ to answer to.

Emperor Hux has a much better ring to it than General or Major or even _Lieutenant_ ever had.

There’s a sleep mumble against his shoulder, “I liked Lieutenant Hux.”

“That makes one of us.”

This time there is a kiss pressed against his shoulder. Disgustingly domestic. He would turn and tell Ren as much, if he wasn’t so certain that the other man already knew his thoughts on the matter.

“On the other hand, Emperor does sound nice.”

Hux is certain that his heart stops beating for a long minute following Ren’s words. The silence that had felt comforting before now feels suffocating. He pushes away from his bed fellow in an instant, finding both discomfort and relief in the loss of Ren’s warmth against him.

It is only when he sits on the edge of the bed, as far from Ren as possible in this small space, that he speaks, barely trusting his own words. “Does it come to pass?”

“You don’t believe in the Force. You don’t believe in anything,” Ren points out. “Why ask this of me, when you will not believe my answer.”

His voice shakes slightly as he replies, “I believe in you.”

\---

Watching Ren pace across the his office is a strange sensation. His long strides crossing the room with only three steps before he is forced to turn back around the other way. Hux follows him with his eyes.

Does he look this absurd as he paces about, or is it simply _Ren_ who makes the act of pacing appear to be the most moronic use of one's energy to have ever existed?

“You look worse,” Ren says, sensing his thoughts, but still not stopping his movements.

“Sit down,” he says, not so much as a command, but a worried insistence. He allows just a touch of concern slip into his voice.

He is certain that it is that hint of concern that slows Ren down, finally settling into the seat on the other side of Hux’s desk.

Once Ren has done that Hux prompts, “Mask,” and a noise like a sigh comes out of the modulator, before Ren is pressing against the latch along the side of his mask and removing it.

The mask sits heavy on the edge of Hux’s desk.

“I have a lead on the final piece of the map to Skywalker,” Ren says, his voice low, reverberating through Hux.

“This is good news.”

Without the mask it is easy to see Ren’s expression, to see the uncertainty there, an expression that he would never dare to show before the Supreme Leader. Hux cannot bring himself to ask the question that he has heard their leader ask before. Cannot even begin to think about implying that the reason for Ren’s pacing might be that he does not want to find this piece of the map. That he does not want to find his former master. That his personal feelings about Skywalker have convinced him to-

“Stop it,” Ren snaps.

“I didn’t say anything,” Hux reminds him, when he feels the air crackle with dark energy. The datapad on his desk shakes in place, rattling against the durasteel desk as Ren projects outwards. At least this time he is not slashing the room to bits.

“You didn’t have to.”

Hux sighs. “You cannot hold me accountable for every stray thought that passes through my mind.”

“I hear them,” Ren points out. “You think so loudly.”

He knows better than to fall for Ren’s barbed remark.

This is a discussion that they have had plenty of times before. It works as an endless loop. Ren is offended by his thoughts. Hux reminds him to stay out of his mind. Ren insists that the bond prevents that. Hux half-heartedly suggests breaking the bond.

“You’re changing the topic,” Hux stops the discussion before it can start. “Tell me about this map piece that you are reluctant to retrieve.”

“It is a feeling I have, an unwelcome one.”

“From the _Force_ ,” Hux does not bother to hide his disbelief.

He may have proof of the Force’s existence rooted in his mind, but that did not mean he had to believe in every whim and fancy that Ren was willing to let dictate his life.

“Yes.”

“And what does the Force say, Lord Ren?”

“That there may be no coming back from this.”

“Is that such a bad thing?”

\---

Ren is unsuccessful.

Hux doesn’t need to hear it in words. No, he can feel the displeasure across space, even before the transport carrying Ren returns to the Finalizer.

A part of him wants to pull Ren aside, to calm him down before his ship suffers any more damages, but another part of him knows that they have a job to do.

There is a member of the Resistance that was taken prisoner, a man whose torture Hux must see to firsthand. And then preparations for whatever comes next - if they can get a location of the Resistance base out of this man… Hux jitters with something like excitement.

Ren’s mission may have been a failure, but having a key member of the Resistance on board the Finalizer could turn the tides of the war in their favor.

A Lieutenant, whose name Hux does not bother to learn, pushes a datapad with information they had been able to dig up on the man Ren had captured.

He stares down at the datapad, where an outdated picture of a Republic Navy Commander who was reported to have gone _rogue_ stares up at him.

Poe Dameron.

His breath sticks in his chest as he stares at the photograph and gets the flash of something-

_A boy much younger than the man in the photograph, dark curls framing a tanned face and a voice proud as he speaks “I’m gonna be the best damn pilot in the Republic, and Ben, you’ll be” -_

He snaps back out of the image a second later, the only thing to betray the slip in his mental barriers is the slight falter in his step, which thankfully goes unnoticed by the Lieutenant reporting the situation to him.

“That will be all, Lieutenant,” Hux says, dismissing the other man as they reach the door to the cell holding Dameron.

The bloodied man slumped in his restraints does not much resemble the man in the naval picture, nor the boy that had slipped into Hux’s mind. He has the build of a military man about him, but sloppily put together - the essence of the Resistance.

“Commander Dameron,” Hux drawls. “Welcome to the First Order.”

“The Resistance is not afraid of you,” Dameron says, words he has no doubt practiced for this very moment.

“Oh, it’s not me that you ought to be afraid of. I’m afraid he comes afterwards.”

\---

It is incredible how things can suddenly go from good, to bad, to so much worse - all in a matter of minutes.

His hands curl tightly into fists, in order to stop their preemptive shaking, as he walks the bridge.

Having a prisoner escape was one thing - especially one with intel that could have been vital to the First Order’s success - but having one escape with the help of one of their own, a trooper from the program that had been crafted to his own specifications. This was a blow to his legacy, to the success he had worked so hard for, whether or not the Supreme Leader would forgive his failure was yet to be seen.

Other men had been killed for less.

 _‘Do not disappoint me again,’_ those were the words that had been said to him, dismissively as an afterthought, yet now they echoed in Hux’s mind.

Having Ren rub salt in that wound was just cruel.

“They’re obviously skilled at committing high treason. Perhaps Leader Snoke should consider using a clone army.”

To hear words that were often given in jest, an inside joke between them, now turned into an attack hurts more than it should. They are both angry and at their own respective ends at this point.

“My men are exceptionally trained - programmed from birth,” Hux insists, reminding him of a fact they are both all too well aware of.

“Then they should have no problem retrieving the droid, unharmed.”

He wants to pull Ren aside, away from prying eyes. To force him back against the wall a kiss him until they forget to hurt each other. To fight off this anger that threatens to overwhelm them both, an endless feedback between two people who have never bothered to put up walls against each other.

Hux does none of that.

Instead he drops his voice lower, in a warning tone. “Careful, Ren. That your _personal interests_ do not interfere with orders from Leader Snoke.”

As he says the words he pushes memories that are not his own to the front of his mind. Visions that have come to him in dreams - _of a master long forgotten, a mother’s worried smile, a teenage pilot, a girl with blood stained palms_.

Ren does not miss the implication. Even Hux can sense that much. “I want that map. For your sake, I suggest you get it.”

When Ren stalks away from him, Hux cannot entirely say which of them the hatred that burns so strongly in his veins belongs to.

\---

He gives the command to begin preparing the weapon with an almost excited voice. This was what he had been waiting for. His anger at Ren that had been building throughout the day seems to subside for a moment when the Supreme Leader grants approval for his plan.

Now as he retreats to his rooms to prepare for the upcoming event though the feeling begins to come back slowly, anger mixed with defensiveness, by the time Hux keys open his door, he knows that Ren will be standing on the other side.

“I assume you have a mission from the Supreme Leader.”

Ren is maskless, his expression clear as he crosses the space between them without hesitating. Kissing Hux with an angry certainty, desperate hands moving at the buttons of his uniform.

He knows that he is being distracted from his question. That Ren is in need of some sort of relief, has been since he returned unsuccessfully from Jakku, and that if Hux pushes him away Ren will simply find other ways to vent his frustrations.

But he would be lying if he said that he didn’t need this release just as much as Ren did.

“Bed,” he says, pulling back from Ren, and pushing him in that general direction.

“No time,” Ren insists. His hands manage to undo Hux’s pants as he speaks those words, pushing the fabric down to pool about Hux’s feet.

A moan escapes his lips the second Ren’s fingers encircle his cock. The grip is a bit too tight and too rough, but that does not stop him from bucking his hips forward, desperate for more contact.

His hands shake as he goes to return the favor, to free Ren’s cock, so that they both can experience the pleasure and relief that they need, but Ren bats him away with his free hand, while twisting his other wrist. So that any objection Hux might have hads turns into a desperate moan instead.

“Just let me, just this once,” Ren asks him, _begs_ him even.

Giving in is all too easy.

\---

“Today is the end of the Republic,” he practices the words under his breath, as he desperately attempts to put himself back together. A new uniform is picked out, clean and well pressed, his other lays about the floor no doubt wrinkled from where Ren had let it fall when he divested Hux of his layers. “The end of a regime that acquiesces to disorder.”

“Finally getting to use the speech,” Ren sounds almost amused.

A stated expression would normally be dawning Ren’s face after the orgasm that Hux had pulled from him, but now only an anxious look paints his features. To think, Hux is the one of them who actually has an anxiety disorder.

He would ask Ren what was troubling him, but if this time went as the last one did, they would have no time to get to their respective positions in time.

“At this very moment, in a system far from here,” Hux continues, slipping his fingers carefully through the buttons of his uniform. “The New Republic lies to the galaxy while secretly supporting the treachery of the Resistance.”

“Loathsome,” Ren offers unasked for input, as he fumbles through putting his own clothes back in order. “The treachery of the loathsome Resistance sounds better, more _you_.”

Hux imagines that’s supposed to be an insult.

Nicer at least than the ones they had been trading hours before.

“This fierce machine which you have built, upon which we stand, will bring an end to the Senate. To their cherished fleet,” he fixes his gaze on the mirror before him. Taking in his own features - this is how he will be remembered for all of history, this will be the moment that defines his life, the moment he has been building up towards since infancy.

Excitement and anticipation threatens to overwhelm him, as he prepares for his peak moment.

He holds his own gaze steady as he continues the practiced speech. “All remaining systems will bow to the First Order.”

Ren steps up behind him, but Hux does not tear his gaze away from his own eyes, even when he feels Ren’s breath wet against the back of his neck.

“And will remember this,” a kiss against the nape of his neck, fleeting barely there, “As the last day of the Republic!”

\---

He had thought that nothing could bring him down from his high of destroying the Hosnian system, but then he had seen Ren return empty handed.

“The girl will be enough,” Ren insists. He doesn’t sound angry, not like he should be, instead he sounds downright hopeful.

Hux swears for a second that there is something familiar in the image of the girl that Ren had brought instead of the droid, but the longer he lingers on the feeling. The more resentment he feels.

“You wanted the droid to get away,” he accuses, remembering how Ren had paced across his office. “You never wanted to find Skywalker, you were just using the First Order as an excuse to-”

“How dare you,” Ren cuts him off, able to sense the words before Hux speaks them.

They’re in a public hallway, not the privacy of Hux’s rooms or office, so Ren’s mask remains on, his voice remains modulated and insensitive, features unreadable. It makes being angry easier.

“Should I be expecting you to defect any moment, running back to mummy and daddy, to the kriffing Resistance-” his shoulders hit the wall, as Ren shoves him backwards.

The air is knocked out of Hux’s chest in shock. He cannot help the wild look that is in his eyes, a look he affixes on the lens of Ren’s mask.

Ren remains silent.

Silence is not something Hux can deal with, not right now. He wants to hit something - to hit Ren. He wants to erase this whole day from existence, to wipe this failure away. It would be easier, he thinks, to erase Ren from existence. To have left that boy behind in the ruined temple, at least then Ren would not be here to ruin everything that he has worked so hard for in one fell swoop.

He knows Ren can sense his thoughts, because the pressure that had been holding him back falls away at once, the Knight retreated back towards where his prisoner lies ready to be interrogated.

“I don’t have time for this,” is all Ren says as he turns away.

\---

As he stands there on the bridge watching as the last piece of his proverbial coffin slides into place, as he feels the explosions wreck the base he had worked so hard to build. There is one thought that passes through his mind, fleeting but strong, that if this is to be it the moment he dies, the last words he said to Ren were of anger.

He reaches out hesitantly into his mind, to the bond that Ren had once carefully shown him how to find, that which has linked them for over a decade, but he feels nothing from it in return. The numbness that had been there ever since Ren turned away to interrogate the scavenger girl.

He was being shut out.

They were about to die and he was being -

A second thought hits him, as he watches his world fall to chaos, that while he may not know where to go from here, that while he may fear what telling the Supreme Leader of another disappointment may mean, there was one thing he must do.

“Colonel Datoo, you have the bridge.”

“Sir,” he hears the Colonel’s question, but Hux does not spare him a second, he has more important matters to attend to.

 


	7. finis

“ _Leave the base at once, and come to me with Kylo Ren. It is time to complete his training_.”

The Supreme Leader’s words echo through his head. An order that Hux cannot disobey.

He takes a transport for himself, unnoticed in his crew’s mad scramble to fight off the Resistance that had already overtaken them. Hux does not spare a thought from the men that will remain on the Starkiller base when it is destroyed, every death is a sacrifice for the betterment of the First Order. Every sacrifice is one that he is willing to make.

Well, almost everyone.

His reaches out for Ren, with no Force sense of his own, feeling for an echo in his mind that might direct him towards the Ren.

A noise not unlike relief escapes his lips when he feels the walls that Ren had carefully constructed earlier having slipped away without him realizing it, giving him a brush of awareness for the other man, zeroing in on the sensation to lead him towards where Ren is.

It is not until he is directing his transport towards Ren’s location that the feeling coming through their bond becomes clear - _pain_.

\---

The look on Ren’s face is far too familiar, one that despite the wound bisecting his features, Hux knows in an instant. He’s going into shock. Just as he had a over a decade ago, but this time Ren is not a boy in a temple, but a man defeated on a planet that is about to burn itself up.

He kneels in the snow, pressing his fingers to the side of Ren’s neck to feel for a pulse that he already knew was going to be there.

“Come on,” he says, helping to tug Ren up, though the man in his arms feels more like dead weight than anything else.

Ren steadies himself slowly, a hand pressing against his left side that comes up with blood on his fingers. Hux grimaces at the sight, who knows how many more wounds are beneath his robes.

“You’re hurt,” Hux says, even though it is obvious. “The girl bested you.”

His answer is an agitated noise. “I can see you’re still mad-”

“Don’t waste your breath on useless matters,” Hux cuts Ren off.

Ren grumbles something in reply to that, a half-hearted insistence that Hux started it, but he is silent a moment later, leaning against Hux for support as they move to where the transport he had taken awaits them. Ren isn’t an easy weight to bear, but they manage to make it onto the transport easily enough.

Hux sets him down upon the one of the bunks in the transport.

“Stay here,” Hux orders, the second he sets Ren down.

“Where would I go,” Ren asks in reply.

A question that Hux cannot answer.

Instead he moves towards the cockpit, setting the controls to take them to Snoke’s citadel. The journey is not a long one, a little under two days time. He knows the path well enough by now, though he has only ever traveled in once before.

His eyes move away from the autopilot and instead to the transport’s viewport, almost wishing that he hadn’t, at least then he wouldn’t have had to see everything which he had worked consume itself until nothing remained.

Disappointment does not even begin to explain it.

\---

There is a small area of the transport that is meant to be a lounge, it is there that Hux sets up a makeshift medbay, taking the two medkits he could find on the transport and spreading their supplies out over the table, before situating Ren in one of the lounge’s chairs.

He helps Ren to remove his layers, the dark fabric sticking to his skin where blood had dried the fabric to him.

“This will hurt,” Hux warns as he pulls the fabric back. Stripping the layers from him, as he had done many times before, but never under these circumstances.

The skin at Ren’s side is bloodied and raw, a blaster wound does not burn as cleanly as the saber wounds that litter the rest of his body.

“How,” he asks, remembering all too clearly how many times he had watched Ren stop a blaster’s strike in its path with nothing more than his mind and the Force.

He does not get an answer.

In truth, he did not expect one.

“It’s going to need stitches,” he warns. Grabbing for the medkit. It has been years since Hux has stitched up another man, not since his days at the academy, but he remembers well enough how to do this.

Ren does not offer any objections to his actions.

He does not offer anything at all, simply staring forward in a blank look that gives Hux a chilly sense of deja vu each time he brings his gaze upwards to meet Ren’s.

When the blaster wound is stitched up, he wets a cloth, proceeding to do his best to clean the blood from Ren’s skin. It is a difficult process, his wounds having been aggravated by his fight with the scavenger girl and then with the journey to Hux’s transport.

It was a shame Ren did not seem to posses the healing abilities that he had once heard of in regards to the Force’s mythos.

Perhaps that bit was just a legend after all.

“We’ve done this before,” Ren says, finally speaking, as Hux brings the cloth up to clean the blood from Ren’s face. The cloth swipes along the cut across his cheekbone, bringing a hiss from those lips.

Hux doesn’t apologize.

Merely replies, “We have. You were much easier to deal with back then.”

“You were,” Ren starts, cut off as the cloth now drags across the bridge of his own. “Different.”

“Very astute,” Hux replies.

He removes the cloth from Ren’s face, the white of it down a burnished red.

“You’ll need bacta before I bandage you up,” Hux says, reaching for the medkit, only to stop as invisible hands impede his movements. “Ren.”

“I don’t need bacta.”

“Maybe not for the saber wounds,” Hux could tell they had already cauterized but had no real understanding of the extra nature of those sorts of wounds. “But your side-”

“Leave it.”

“Leave it,” Hux repeats. “You’re injured, let me-”

“I told you to leave it.”

The Force still holds Hux in place, refusing to let him move, refusing to let him help. Ren could be unbelievably stubborn when he wanted to be, but this was not the time nor the place.

“I will not have you die on me - damn it, Ren, I-”

“Have a little faith in me, General.”

The words are so insensitive that for a second he cannot believe to have actually heard them.

 _I almost lost you_.

He was suddenly glad he had not been allowed to finish his sentence, to let his sentiment for Ren become vocal, not when Ren was so willing to brush him aside.

Hux barely recognizes that Ren is still speaking, still lost in his thought only coming back to himself in time to catch the end of Ren’s statement. “I am stronger than that, this pain will give me strength bring me closer to the dark side of the Force.”

He stares incredulously at Ren.

Ren, who had no way of knowing what he had looked like, lying there in the bloodstained snow, ready to accept his death as an inevitability.

Ren, who is refusing bacta, refusing Hux’s aid, because he believes that hurting himself will give him more of those famed _gifts_ of his.

Ren, who Hux had been foolish enough to fall for, in spite of all of this.

Ren, who is, for some reason, still speaking.

“Allowing you to coddle me will only invite weakness in-”

“Fine,” Hux says, managing to speak loud enough for Ren to hear. “Let your wounds fester and die for all I care.”

Ren sounds defensive the next time he speaks. “I never asked for your help.”

“No, the Supreme Leader commanded it.”

He meets Ren’s eyes as he says these words, looking for answers in the dark gaze in front of him. It offers him nothing that he had hoped for.

“Had Snoke not requested you retrieve me, would you have still come for me?”

Hux finds that he cannot answer that question.

He does not want to.

Instead he turns, stalking back towards the ship’s cockpit, leaving Ren alone as he so clearly seems to desire.

As he settles in the captain’s seat, he tries to push Ren from his mind, instead letting his newfound anger consume him. Even if he is not certain which of them this anger belongs to.

\---

He tells himself he’s still angry at Ren as he slips into the transports bunk room. There’s four bunks, each meant for a single person, two bolted to the left hand wall and two to the right.

Ren is back in the bunk that he had set him in when they’d gotten on the transport, laying on his back. His eyes are shut, though it’s hard to be certain if he’s sleeping with the white bandages covering half of his face. There are other bandages which stand out just as starkly. One around his right bicep, another on his left shoulder - the saber wounds may have cauterized easily, but they still left the skin beneath raw and ruined.

Whereas his left side - Hux’s fingers hover over the bandages, the wound that Ren refused to let him see too, insisting that the pain would bring him strength.

Idiot.

Hux doesn’t touch the bandages instead he moves his fingers higher, brushing against Ren’s uninjured cheek. He counts himself lucky that Ren is not awake to see the sentimentality that is no doubt blatant on his features.

His hand lingers there for a moment, convinced that this might be his last chance to see Ren in such a peaceful state, before he pulls himself away.

He desires nothing more than to slip in the bunk beside Ren, to share his space as they so often had in their quarters on Starkiller base or on board the Finalizer, but the bunks here are much too small for that and with Ren’s injuries… Instead he crosses the room to take the other bottom bunk.

The bed is stiff, uncomfortable, but he does not plan to get much rest.

He turns on his side, content to lay there with the transports safety lights on, watching for the rise and fall of Ren’s chest, proof that he is alive. As long as he was alive, Hux still has a purpose, he still had a job to do.

His eyes slip shut with that thought lingering in his mind.

 

_‘What if everyone hates me,’ she asks, fidgeting in her new robes. She looks about five minutes from sticking her fingers in her mouth, a habit they’ve been unsuccessfully trying to break her of. Her fingers dart anxiously upwards once more -_

_A woman kneels in front of her, checking and rechecking that the little one is ready for this new adventure. They have the same nose, same soft brown eyes, same light dusting of freckles across the bridge of their noses -_

_He tries to remember if they had acted this way before sending him off. All he seemed to remember was panicked looks, quick brush offs, insistences that this would help -_

_As if he needed help, no what he had needed was -_

_The woman calls his name -_ no, it’s Ben she calls - _asks for him to offer reassurances to tell the girl how exciting this is going to be, how much he enjoys it -_

_He’s gotten better at lying over the years -_

_‘Breha’ -_

 

He does not jerk out of the dream, does not surge back into awareness.

Instead his eyes open slowly, blinking away the brightness inside of their transport. The artificial green lights that lined the bunk room casting an unpleasant glow on his surroundings.

He never realized how easily he had gotten used to the the dark, until there was no way to turn off the light.

“Sorry, for waking you,” Ren’s voice is low, barely more than a whisper from the other side of the room. At some point during the night Hux had shifted from his position watching Ren, to lying on his back, he corrects this motion down, turning onto the side so that he can check up on Ren.

“Your stitches-” he starts to ask.

Only to be cut off as Ren replies. “I’m fine.”

“I can grab the bacta-”

“I told you before-”

“Yes, that you’re incredibly stubborn and would like to die on me, I remember,” he snaps.

Refusing to look at Ren for even a moment longer he rolls back over onto his back. Willing himself to find his sleep once again. Even if it had been an unpleasant one, filled with dreams that were not his own, at least it had been better that laying awake and worrying about someone who refused to care about their own recovery.

He’s frustrated with Ren, disappointed in himself, and angry at whole galaxy for seeming to scheme against him. Sleep, without heavy exhaustion to pull him under, seems impossible now.  

Hux tries to focus on that dream, if only to pull himself back into it, but all he can seem to see when he shuts his eyes is the girl in the dream. Small, dressed in the same tan robes that a young Ben had worn -

“You said there were no survivors left at the temple,” Hux says, knowing that Ren is still awake to hear his words.

“There wasn’t.”

His eyes open sharply at that. Bright green lights, blinding him once more.

“The girl, the one who bested you,” Hux insists. “I’ve seen her before, in your memories. She was there as a child, wasn’t she? If you hadn’t let the girl go free, everything we worked for wouldn’t now be in ruins.”

He expects fury in reply.

A part of Hux even wants that, wants to fight as they had before Starkiller’s destruction, if only so that he could channel his disappointment at himself into something more cathartic. Ren had always been so prone to bits of fury, he did not expect Ren to disappoint him now.

But Ren does not lash out. In fact, he does not say anything for so long that Hux thinks he may have fallen asleep, or slipped into some sort of light meditation.

Hux lets his eyes slip shut in the silence.  He tucks his hands, which shake more than he would like, against the sides of his rib cage squeezing himself tighter. The sleeping pills that he used to take were back on the Finalizer, a ship he highly doubted he would ever see again, he yearned for the bliss they would offer him now of an easy sleep.

He can hear the moment Ren rises from his bed, the shifting of the bunk’s mattress. He bites down an insistence that Ren shouldn’t be moving around, not in his condition.

Anger can make both of them cruel.

In spite of that, he still foolishly hopes that Ren’s footsteps will move in his direction, instead of away from him. He is only slightly let down when he hears Ren’s fingers against the bunk rooms keypad.

It is as the door slides open, the one which will put distance between them, that Ren speaks. “She was my sister. I couldn’t…” The rest of what he says is too quiet for Hux to pick up, and before he can ask for clarification Ren steps out of the bunk room leaving Hux alone.

\---

They don’t talk about that night, when the morning cycle comes. In fact, they don’t talk about much at all.

Ren meditates, seeking something that Hux cannot even begin to fathom. In the brief periods of his wakefulness, Hux watches on the controls as he moves through the transport with a sense of purpose. To the fresher, to the makeshift medbay that Hux had said up, to the bunk room - never stepping foot into the cockpit.

The one place Hux had laid claim to as his own.

He wonders if Ren knows that he is watching him, if he can sense that through the Force, but there is no way to ask without leaving the cockpit, and that is something Hux refuses to do.

Instead he spends much of his time not involved in watching Ren, by staring at the autopilot, which with each passing second brings them closer and closer to Snoke.

There will be one night cycle before they reach Snoke, probably the last night of Hux’s life.

It strikes him that if this is to be the end that he should be making arrangements for his departure from life, but what is there to do. The First Order will pick of the pieces in their chain of command without him, leaving Hux with nothing to do in that regard. As far as final words go, he has no family to call, none that he could consider friends.

Realizing that all he really has is Ren leaves a bitter taste in his mouth.

His eyes flick back to the transport’s cameras, to find Ren mediating on the floor of the bunk room once more.

The sight offers him no hint of satisfaction or peace.

\---

It is not as though he fails to realize that he is on the verge of an anxiety attack.

No, he has felt this one building since the moment he was informed that one of his trooper’s had defected. He had pushed it aside before, focused on what had to be done to fix their situation. Then he had been focused on Ren, on his final mission from the Supreme Leader, assuring that he brought the apprentice to his master.

Ren had made it quite clear that Hux’s help was unwanted, though, had pushed him aside, such that Hux had settled in the cockpit in a self imposed exile.

Falling now to the anxiety that had been building up inside of him was almost too easy.

His traitorous mind brought the thoughts he had been trying to brush over to the forefront of his mind.

Concerns that without his help, Ren’s wounds might persist, that he might die before their journey is finished, before he can be delivered to the Supreme Leader. That Hux would instead be forced to arrive before their leader empty handed, death would almost be a blessing in that case.

His death, the one that was inevitable.

The one which he supposed had been inevitable for since nearly fifteen years before, when he had taken Ben from that temple and delivered him to the one that would turn him into Ren.

He wonders if this is how the Supreme Leader will punish him, not by dirtying his own hands with Hux’s blood, but by making Ren strike him down. At least, he could trust Ren to grant him a swift death, striking him down with that lightsaber of his would be better than the tortures the First Order had unleashed upon others who had failed their creed.

His lips move without his accord, shaping Ren’s name without even a whisper to carry it. His chest to tight to offer to sound.

In the end, speaking aloud is unnecessary.

Hux barely registers the door to the cockpit sliding open. Barely registers the man standing behind him, who slots his hands so easily along the sides of Hux’s face, fingertips lightly pressing against his skin.

“Please,” one word pulled out from him. He means it as an invitation, but he feels as though he must beg for it. That is how desperately he wishes to have his thoughts calmed, to let Ren fix everything one last time.

Ren does not immediately act, does not enter his mind.

Instead he speaks slow and certain. “I won’t let him touch you. I won’t let anyone touch you. You are mine.”

“I would let you kill me,” Hux admits, unsure how he even finds the strength to say the words. Yet, once he does he knows that they are true, they always have been true.

“You are mine,” Ren repeats, more determined this time. “And I am yours.”

It is then, that he feels the peace he had so desperately desired.

\---

When he wakes, it is from dreamless sleep. He cannot remember when he laid down a bunk. He cannot recall much since he let Ren entire his mind at all.

Ren, who Hux can feel pressed up against him, the two of them sharing a bunk that is clearly meant for just one person. Though if he were to try to escape from the bunk, he would have to climb over Ren.

Doing so would have woken him, had Ren not already been awake beside him.

As he comes too, he slowly notices the fingers pressed against the inside of his wrist, feeling for a pulse.

“If any one of us should be worried about the other dying-”

“It should be me,” Ren cuts him off. “Since you are ready to worry yourself into an early grave.”

“Says the person refusing bacta.”

The grip on his wrist tightens ever so slightly.

“I deserve an explanation, for why you refuse to let me help you. If you wanted to die back on that planet then…” Hux wouldn’t have let him. Even without the Supreme Leader’s orders, the thought that he might have almost lost Ren in the destruction of Starkiller base, was too much to bear.

“It’s a reminder,” Ren says, after a moment. “Pain makes it easier to connect to the darkside, cutting away attachments…I killed my father.”

“I am aware,” Hux replies, “Should I offer condolences?”

He means it to come off sarcastic, but it is a weak jab.

Ren snorts. “There’s no need for that.”

No, Hux supposes not.

“For the record, I would have killed mine. Had he not died before I had the chance.”

“Should I offer my condolences for stealing that opportunity from you?”

It is Hux’s turn to dismiss the notion.

“This is different. Killing Han Solo was supposed to have made me stronger, to have given me the power over the light so that it could have no hold on me,” Ren explains. “Instead I feel, the same as before.”

“That disappoints you?”

“Concerns me,” Ren corrects.

Concern.

He was not certain that Ren was capable of such an emotion.

“I am concerned for you from time to time,” Ren insists, sensing his unspoken thoughts.

“I wish you wouldn’t do that,” Hux replies.

Ren ignores his comment.

“You’re the reason, that killing Han Solo did not grant me any strength, because it is not my attachment to a family that I have long since abandoned that holds me back,” Ren continues. “It is you.”

The bond comes to the forefront of his mind. The bond that he had put off breaking despite the fact that it would have offered him relief, that he had instead clung to as his feelings for Ren had grown into something too real to deny.

“Then I was right,” Hux says. “He will have you kill me.”

Ren does not answer him, does not give him the words that would both set him free and bind him to his fate.

Instead Ren turns towards him, slotting their mouths together, in a kiss that is more gentle than any one that they had ever shared before. A kiss that Hux lets himself melt into, a kiss that he had so dearly needed. It is not an answer, not really, but he feels relief, he feels complete as they kiss.

There is more he would do if he had the chance.

He would take Ren one last time on this bed, give him something to remember him buy. He would take him apart slowly, intimately, in every way that Hux knows he needs. The soft touches that neither of them would willingly admit to be desperate for.

They pull apart briefly, gasping breathes against each other's lips, as they each struggle to remember how to breathe.

He barely hears the words are first, barely realizes that Ren’s lips are moving against his in an attempt to speak, but when he does, it strikes Hux breathless all over again.

“I love you.”

If his end were to come now, in this moment, lying beside Ren, he would welcome it. Knowing that if nothing else, that he had this to hold onto, before it all slips away.

He kisses Ren once more instead of answering.

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's it, the end! Thank you all so much for reading along. Extra special thanks to those of you that left me such wonderful comments, you gave me the strength to keep going with this story. I hope you all enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it!

**Author's Note:**

> find me on tumblr @ plinys


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